• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
Archangel Michael Logo

Quotes

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

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

Therefore, if you wish to conquer the passions, cut off the love of pleasure; but if you are pursuing food, you will spend a life in passions; the soul will not be humbled if the flesh is not deprived of bread. It is not possible to deliver the soul from perdition while protecting the body from unpleasantness.

If we want to do something but cannot, then before God, Who knows our hearts, it is as if we have done it. This is true whether the intended action is good or bad.

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

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

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.

The holy Fathers' counsel is to begin with small things, for, says Ephraim the Syrian, how can you put out a great fire before you have learned to quench a small one? If you wish to set yourself free from a great suffering, crush the small desires, say the holy Fathers. Do not suppose that the one can be separated from the others: they all hang together like a long chain or a net.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Even if thy soul should suffer somewhat from an offense, keep the sorrow within thyself. For it is said: 'Within me my heart is troubled' (Psalm 142:4), that is, the passion has not come out, but has been humbled like a wave that has broken up on the shore. Calm thy raging heart. Let thy passions be ashamed at the presence of reason in thee, as playful children are ashamed before a man commanding respect.

If Nabuzardan, the court cook of the King of the Babylonians, had not gone to Jerusalem, then the Temple would not have burned (cf. 2 Kings 24), That is to say, a person’s mind is not attacked by the flames of carnal pleasures, if a person is not conquered by gluttony.

Do not allow a passion to harden into a habit.

When we turn our spirit from the contemplation of God, we become the slaves of carnal passions.

When a passion arises, when it is young and feeble, cut it off, lest it stiffen and cause you a great deal of trouble. It is one thing to pluck out a small weed and quite another thing to uproot a great tree.

Filtered (24)
Filters
Search By Keyword
Filter By
See more See less
Topics (Love, Anger, Confession, etc.)
See more See less
Show (24)
Cancel
Parish

Mailing Address

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)