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

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.

It is a sin to spend time idly.

One who lives in idleness sins continually.

Those who yield themselves to idleness and apathy, even though they may be spiritual and holy, hurl themselves into unnatural subjection to passions.

Serving the sick is one of the most powerful weapons for guarding one's purity.

Ease and idleness are the destruction of the soul and they can injure her more than the demons.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Everything we do, our every objective, must be undertaken for the sake of this purity of heart. This is why we take on loneliness, fasting, vigils, work, nakedness. For this we must practice the reading of the Scripture, together with all the other virtuous activities, and we do so to trap and to hold our hearts free of the harm of every dangerous passion and in order to rise step by step to the high point of love.

But if you give a strong body rest and ease and idleness, all the passions dwelling in the soul are intensified. Then, even if the soul has a great desire for good, even the very thought of the good that is desired will be taken from you.

In the eyes of God, it is always preeminently right that a man should spend himself in devising new means for spreading consolation to his subordinates, who are his charges.

How can one say that a man has attained purity? - When he sees all men as being good, and when none appears to him to be unclean and defiled - then he is indeed pure in heart.

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

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