• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

Do you wish God to hear your prayer immediately, brother? When you lift your hands up to heaven, pray first of all, with your heart, for your enemies and God will grant you speedily whatever else you request.

What air is for the life of the body, the Holy Spirit is for the life of the soul. By means of prayer, the soul breathes this holy, mysterious air.

Go, sell all that belongs to you and give it to the poor and taking up the cross, deny yourself; in this way you will be able to pray without distraction.

We must always pray to the Lord to tell us what to do, and the Lord will not let us go astray. Adam was not wise enough to ask the Lord about the fruit which Eve gave him, and so he lost paradise. David did not ask the Lord whether it would be a good thing if he took Beth-sheba to wife, and so he fell into the sins of murder and adultery. So with all the saints who sinned: they sinned because they had not called upon God to enlighten and help them. St. Seraphim of Sarov said, ‘When I spoke of myself I was often in error.’

Prayer is a branch (of a tree) of meekness, and freedom from anger. Prayer is an expression of joy and thankfulness. Prayer is a remedy against sorrow and depression.

Whatever you have endured out of love of wisdom will bear fruit for you at the time of prayer.

Be fond of working with your hands, but still more of the memory of prayer; because the first does not always bring us the fruit of that occupation, while the second does so unceasingly. Do not stop praying until you have paid your due of prayer in full, and do not listen to the thought that it is time to sit down to work. Equally, when you sit at work, do not be too concerned in it, lest you agitate the heart by your haste and make it worthless for prayer.

The joint prayer of husband and wife is a great force.

Prayer is a remedy against grief and depression.

If a man tries to overcome temptations without prayer and patient endurance, he will become more entangled in them instead of driving them away.

Do not attempt to assess the quality of your prayer. God alone can judge its value. To us, our own prayer must always appear so poor an effort, so inadequate an achievement, that the cry of the publican spontaneously rises from our lips.

Fire makes iron impossible to touch, and likewise frequent prayer renders the intellect more forceful in its warfare with the enemy. That is why the demons strive with all their strength to make us slothful in attentiveness to prayer, for they know that prayer is the intellect's invincible weapon against them.

Prayer is the seed of gentleness and the absence of anger.

There is yet another reason that may cause our prayer to go unanswered: namely, that though we pray we yet continue in sin.

Pray and sigh, pleading with God Himself to grant you zeal and inclination: for without Him we are good for no task whatsoever.

Prayer is a great good if offered up from a thankful soul; if we are steadfast in it, so that whether we receive or do not receive what we pray for we at all times give thanks to God. For since He will sometimes grant what we ask and sometimes will not, in both cases it is to our gain... For oftentimes God will delay, not as denying our prayer, but in His wisdom seeking rather for our perseverance, and desiring to draw us nearer to Himself; as a loving father when asked by his son for something will often do; withholding consent, and not from the will to refuse, but rather to encourage him in steadfastness.

Undistracted prayer is the highest doing of the mind.

Let us then not lose heart, nor be slothful or timid in prayer. Even if we have been brought down to the depths of evil, prayer can speedily draw us back.

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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)