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

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.

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 work according to God is called virtue, so unexpected affliction is called a test.

Nothing is better for rendering the heart penitent and the soul humble than wise solitude and complete silence.

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

Grace always precedes temptation, as if to notify you saying, 'Prepare yourself and lock your doors.'

Knowing the exact nature of everything, God permits each person to be tested according to his strength. As St. Paul puts it: 'God is to be trusted not to let you be tried beyond your strength, but with the trial He will provide a way out, so that you are able to bear it' (1 Cor. 10:13).

Every man that loves God loves a quiet life.

When tested by some trial you should try to find out not why or through whom it came, but only how to endure it gratefully, without distress or rancor.

The arrows of the enemy cannot touch one who loves quietness; but he who moves about in a crowd will often be wounded.

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.

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.

Nothing so fills the heart with contrition and humbles the soul as solitude embraced with self-awareness, and utter silence.

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

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.

Solitude offers us an excellent opportunity for calming our passions and giving our reason time to remove them thoroughly from our soul. For just as wild animals can be soothed by being stroked, so all our anger, fear and stress, which poison and disrupt our soul, can be soothed by an atmosphere of peace where the freedom from constant disturbance ensures that our soul can be brought more easily under the power of reason.

A fish swiftly escapes a hook and a sensual soul shuns solitude.

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.

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