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Quotes

A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.

May simplicity go before you everywhere; especially be simple in your faith, hope, and love, for God is an Essence of Simplicity, a Unity that is worshipped everlastingly, and our soul is simple. The simplicity of our soul is hindered by our flesh, when we please it.

Let all of us who wish to attract the Lord to ourselves draw near to Him as disciples to the Master, simply, without hypocrisy, without duplicity or guile, not out of idle curiosity. He Himself is simple and not composite, and He wants souls that come to Him to be simple and guileless. For you will surely never see simplicity bereft of humility.

Walk before God in simplicity, and not in subtleties of the mind. Simplicity brings faith; but subtle and intricate speculations bring conceit; and conceit brings withdrawal from God.

Live simply and God will not leave you...

The conscience is nature's book. He who applies what he reads there experiences God's help.

There is nothing more burdensome and grievous then when conscience accuses us in anything, and there is nothing dearer then calmness and approval of the conscience.

Do not disregard your conscience, which always counsels you of the best. It puts before you divine and angelic advice; it frees you from the hidden stains of your heart, and will make you the gift of free speech with God at the time of your departure.

Inside us evil is at work suggesting unworthy inclinations. However, it is not in us in the same way as, to take as an example, water mixes with wine. Evil is in us without being mixed with good. We are a field in which wheat and weeds are growing separately. We are a house in which there is a thief, but also the owner. We are a spring which rises from the middle of the mud, but pours out pure water. All the same, it is enough to stir up the mud and the spring is fouled. It is the same with the soul. If the evil is spread, it forms a unity with the soul and makes it dirty. With our consent, evil is united with the soul; they become accomplices. Yet there comes a moment when the soul can free itself and remain separate again: in repentance, contrition, prayer, recourse to God. The soul could not benefit from these habits if it were always sunk in evil. It is like a marriage. A woman is united with a man and they become one flesh. But when one of them dies, the other is left alone. But union with the Holy Spirit is complete. So, let us become a single spirit with Him. Let us be wholly absorbed by grace.

Just as the most bitter medicine drives out poisonous things, so prayer joined to fasting drives evil thoughts away.

Fear God and keep His commandments both in your feelings and in your intellect. If you force yourself to keep them in your intellect, bit by bit you will attain to fulfilling them in your feelings.

It is up to us now to either bury our conscience under the ground, or to have it shine forth and illuminate us if we obey it. When our conscience says to us, 'Do this,' and we treat it with contempt, or it says it again and we refuse, then we are trampling it down, burying it under ground. Thus, it cannot speak to us clearly because of the weight upon it.

Blessed are those who, from love of God, have girded their loins with unquestioning simplicity for this sea of suffering, and who do not turn back.

Keep your conscience keen and bright, and refrain from hankering after, or expecting, consolation. Leave that to God. He knows when, where, and how to give it to you.

Where there is simplicity, there are a hundred Angels, but where there is cleverness – there are none.

You know that evil entered into us through the transgression of the commandments. Hence it is obvious that by keeping them, evil departs from us. But without the doing of the commandments we should not even aspire or hope for purity of soul, because at the very outset we do not walk on the path that leads us to purity of soul. Do not say that God can give us the grace of purity of soul even without our keeping the commandments.

The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.

As a general rule, decide whether a thing is permissible by the effect it produces within. Permit yourself what is constructive, but never what is destructive.

Along with an evil thought, a hostile power enters into us, and then the soul is clouded, and evil thoughts harass her.

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Archangel Michael Orthodox Church
5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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440-526-5192 (Phone)