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Quotes

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

If the main goal of the repentant sinner should be total, light-bearing and blessed communion with God, then the main hindrance to this is the existence of the passions still active and working in him - the virtues being as yet unsealed in him - and the unrighteousness of his powers. Therefore his main work upon conversion and repentance should be the uprooting of the passions and sealing the virtues - in a word, correcting himself.

When God, using our conscience, calls us to righteousness and yet our self-will opposes Him, He respects our freedom and lets our own will be done; but then, alas, our minds grow dull, our will slack, and we commit iniquities without number. On the other hand, the fruits of the spirit are soon granted to them who follow the commandments of Christ our Lord.

You cannot destroy the passions on your own, but ask God, and He will destroy them, if this is profitable for you.

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.

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.

In all our actions God looks at the intention, whether we do them for Him or from some other motive.

If we cut off the causes of the passions for only a short while, and occupy ourselves with spiritual contemplation without making it our sole and constant concern, we easily revert to the passions of the flesh, gaining nothing from our labor but theoretical knowledge coupled with conceit. The result is a gradual darkening of this knowledge itself and a complete turning of the intellect towards material things.

Spiritual freedom is release from the passions; without Christ’s mercy you cannot attain it.

It is not safe to swim in one's clothes, nor should a slave of passion touch theology.

Free me from my wanton habits before the end overtakes me...

If you give gladly, even if you give only a little, it is a big gift. If you give unwillingly, even if you give a big gift, you turn it into a small one.

One must clean the royal house from every impurity and adorn it with every beauty, then the king may enter into it. In a similar way one must cleanse the earth of the heart and uproot the weeds of sin and the passionate deeds and soften it with sorrows and the narrow way of life, sow in it the seed of virtue, water it with lamentation and tears, and only then does the fruit of dispassion and eternal life grow. For the Holy Spirit does not dwell in a man until he has been cleansed from passions of the soul and body. Only one thing may remain within a man, either the Holy Spirit or the passions. Where the Holy Spirit is, there the passions do not come near, and where the passions are, there the Holy Spirit does not dwell, but rather the evil one.

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.

If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions, you cannot reap God's mercy.

Do not allow a passion to harden into a habit.

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.

Conscience in men is nothing else but the voice of the omnipresent God moving in the hearts of men, as He Who alone Is and has created everything, the Lord knows all as Himself - all the thoughts, desires, intentions, words, and works of men, present, past, and future. However far in front I may let my thoughts, my imagination, run He is there before me and I ever inevitably finish my course in Him, ever having Him as the witness of my ways. 'His eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men' (Jer 32:19). 'Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?' (Ps 139:7).

Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passions.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)