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Quotes

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

If you love the Sender, then also love the letter which is sent from Him to you. For the word of God is given by God to me, to you, and to everyone, so that everyone who desires to be saved may receive salvation through it.

When an archer desires to shoot his arrows successfully, he first takes great pains over his posture and aligns himself accurately with his mark. It should be the same for you who are about to shoot the head of the wicked devil. Let us be concerned first for the good order of sensations and then for the good posture of inner thoughts.

The ignorance of Scripture is a great cliff and a deep abyss; to know nothing of the divine laws is a great betrayal of salvation.

Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.

The man who is conscious of his sins is greater than he who profits the whole world by the sight of his countenance. The man who sighs over his soul for but one hour is greater than he who raises the dead by his prayer while dwelling amid many men.

Mourning has a twofold action: like water tears extinguish all the fire of passions and wash the soul clean of their foulness; and, again, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, it is like fire bringing life, warming the heart, and inciting it to love and desire God.

Do not approach the words of the mysteries contained in the divine Scriptures without prayer and beseeching God for help, but say: 'Lord, grant me to perceive the power in them!' Reckon prayer to be the key to the true understanding of the divine Scriptures.

He who really keeps account of his actions considers as lost every day in which he does not mourn, whatever good he may have done in it.

Observe your thoughts, and beware of what you have in your heart and your spirit, knowing that the demons put ideas into you so as to corrupt your soul by making it think of that which is not right, in order to turn your spirit from the consideration of your sins and of God.

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

Those who mourn and those who are insensitive are not subject to fear, but the cowardly often have become deranged. And this is natural. For the Lord rightly forsakes the proud that the rest of us may learn not to be puffed up.

Go to the tombs and see that the assurance of men is nothing. Why then does man who is dust indulge in vainglory? Why does he who is all stench exalt himself? Let us therefore weep for ourselves while we have time, lest, at the hour of our departure, we be found asking God for extra time to repent.

When you intend to do something and see that your thought is perturbed, and if after invoking God's Name it remains perturbed even by a hair's breadth, know from this that the action you mean to commit is from the evil one and refrain from commiting it. For nothing done with perturbation is pleasing to God.

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The first divine fruit of silence is mourning -- grief according to God -- joy-grief. Afterward come luminous thoughts, which bring the holy flow of tears streaming with life, from which also comes the second baptism and the soul is purified and shines and becomes like the angels.

The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...

When a man has been sufficiently illumined, however, to perceive his own faults, he never ceases mourning for himself and for all men, seeing God’s great forbearance and what sins we in our wretchedness have committed and still persist in committing. As a result of this he becomes full of gratitude, not daring to condemn anyone, shamed by the profusion of God’s blessings and the multitude of our sins. Thereupon he joyfully renounces everything in his own will that is counter to God, and he watches over his own senses, so as to prevent them from doing anything beyond what is unavoidably needed.

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

God in His mercy gave us the Holy Scriptures that we might read them, and reading them we might fulfill what is sent by God to man, revealing His Holy Will and teaching us how to live. Consider with what attention and willingness that we ought to read God's letter to us. If an earthly king...wrote to you a letter, would you not read it with great joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful attention. The King of Heaven has sent a letter to you, an earthly and mortal man; yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a treasure. Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Him self is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with Him. God speaks to man, the King of Heaven talks with the corruptible creature, the Lord holds converse with the servant. What can be more pleasant... more instructive?

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)