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

The man who has come to loathe sin has mounted the first rung of the heavenly ladder.

Reading the Scriptures is a great means of security against sinning.

For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force...it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.

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.

Being delivered from bodily sins is not enough, we must also cleanse the inner energy which dwells in our souls.

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

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.

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

Woe is he who knowingly chooses to sin with the intention to repent when morning comes, for he knows not what the coming day or the night that precedes it will bring.

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye like a mirror in which the appearance of our inner being can be seen.

The only thing God requires of us is that we do not sin. But this is achieved, not by acting according to the law, but by carefully guarding the divine image in us and our supernal dignity. When we thus live in our natural state, wearing the resplendent robe of the Spirit, we dwell in God and God dwells in us. Then we are called gods by adoption and sons of God, sealed by the light of the knowledge of God.

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

Do not stir up a memory that will cover your prayer with mud, do not root around in the soil of your old sins.

He who does not consciously choose to distance himself from a cause for sin, will be drawn to sin, even against his will.

Every man who has committed sin, has stopped up the senses of his soul with the mud of pleasure.

A thick rope is composed of thin strands of hemp. One thin strand cannot hold you bound nor strangle you, for you will easily, with the lightest touch, break it and free yourself. But if a thick rope binds you, you will stay bound, and it will strangle you. You cannot easily break it and free yourself of it. As a thick rope is made from thin, weak strands, so men's passions are made up of smaller initial sins. The small, initial sins a man can still break and free himself of. But sin on sin, repeated, the weave becomes thicker and thicker until it becomes a passion, which masters a man as only it can do. You can neither cut it out easily nor cast it away from you nor be divorced from it. Oh, when will men guard themselves from these first sins? Then they would not have so much difficulty in freeing themselves from the passions.

Sin disfigures a man, while grace brings beauty.

God seeks nothing else from us men except that we do not sin; this alone. But this is not a work of law; it is rather a careful guarding of the image and dignity from above. In these things, affirmed in our nature and bearing the radiant garment of the Spirit, we shall abide in God and He in us. We shall be called good, and sons of God by adoption, marked in the light of our knowledge of God.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)