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

Increasing self-criticism is the sign of increasing humility. Indeed, there is no clearer sign.

He who guards his lips preserves his soul; but he who is bold with his lips dishonors himself.

He who smells the smell of one's own foul odor doesn't smell the foul odor of anyone else.

The iniquitous mouth is stopped during prayer, for the condemnation of the conscience deprives a man of his boldness.

Nothing is more unsettling than talkativeness and more pernicious than an unbridled tongue, disruptive as it is of the soul’s proper state. For the soul’s chatter destroys what we build each day and scatters what we have laboriously gathered together.

Humble yourself, reproach yourself, consider yourself the very last and the very worst of all, condemn no one - and you will receive God's mercy.

You have a mouth sealed by the Spirit? When you are speaking, think first of what you are saying, of what words are fitting for a mouth such as yours.

Should you accuse and condemn yourself before God for the sins on your conscience, you will be justified for doing so.

A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

Self-condemnation always brings peace and rest to the heart.

But let us speak that which is good, to the edification of faith. That is, to speak only what will help to build up our neighbor in virtue; nothing more than that.

As for uprooting your passions, begin with self-reproach and with awareness of your own weaknesses; and consider yourself to be deserving of afflictions.

The martyrs will show their torments, the ascetics their good works; but what will I have to show but my apathy and my incessant indulgence?

The more a man's tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by verbosity.

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

Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.

The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny oneself. To deny oneself means to give up one's bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to 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)