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Quotes

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

When I wish to open my mouth and to speak on the exalted theme of humility, I am filled with dread, like someone who is aware that he is about to discourse with his own imperfect words concerning God.

Live very modestly. Be very humble. Don't speak idly about humility, but be like rubbish for people to step on, if you want Christ to visit you. Your heart needs to become as soft as cotton.

You write that after Communion you felt well. Glory be to God, Who comforts our unworthiness. And as regards the fact that this soon passed, here also is seen His fatherly providence for us. For continual consolation enfeebles the soul and makes it slothful, or leads to even greater harm. That is why the Lord takes it away quickly and again makes us feel our weakness, our helplessness, and our sinfulness. We must humble ourselves more, reproach ourselves, offer repentance for our sins, and not desire consolations, but patiently endure what God allows. Dryness and cooling of fervor are also permitted on account of vainglory.

If therefore holy men, even when they do mighty things, think themselves worthless, what must be said of those who, without fruit of virtue, are yet swollen with pride? But any works, although they be good, are as nothing unless seasoned with humility. A great deed done boastfully, lowers rather than uplifts a man. He who would gather virtue without humility, carries dust in the wind; and where he seems to possess something, from the same is he blinded and made worse.

If we are humble, God helps us to fight our sinfulness; if we are proud, He does not.

A certain elder was asked when one attains humility. 'When he remembers his sins continuously,' he replied.

What joy is ours that the Lord not only forgives our sins but allows the soul to know Him, as soon as she humbles herself.

It is not the clever, the noble, the polished speakers, or the rich who win, but whoever is insulted and forebears, whoever is wronged and forgives, whoever is slandered and endures, whoever becomes a sponge and mops up whatever they might say to him. Such a person is cleansed and polished even more. He reaches great heights. He delights in the theoria of mysteries. And finally, it is he who is already inside paradise, while still in this life.

There are certain kinds of trees which never bear any fruit as long as their branches stay up straight, but if stones are hung on the branches to bend them down they begin to bear fruit. So it is with the soul. When it is humbled it begins to bear fruit, and the more fruit it bears the lowlier it becomes. So also the saints; the nearer they get to God, the more they see themselves as sinners.

It seems to me that, in all cases when indignity is offered to us, we should be silent; for it is our moment of profit.

Our achievements must never loom large in our eyes; only our failures. But this must never lead us to despondency - the constant temptation - only to humility.

We see that water gravitates from the mountains to low-lying areas; so too, the grace of God is poured out from the Heavenly Father upon humble hearts.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

The Christian needs two wings in order to soar upward and attain Paradise: humility and love.

Behold, this is the true and the Christian humility. In this you will be able to achieve victory over every vice, by attributing to God rather than to yourself the fact that you have won.

Where there is pride there cannot be grace, and if we lose grace we also lose both love of God and assurance in prayer. The soul is then tormented by evil thoughts and does not understand that she must humble herself and love her enemies, for there is no other way to please God.

If the humbling of oneself before men is needful that one might be exalted before God, and temporal toil is the prerequisite of immortal life, what does it matter if some shake their heads and laugh at your self-abasement?

Learn the humility of Christ and the Lord will give you to taste of the sweetness of prayer.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)