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

Quotes

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

He who fears God will pay careful attention to his soul and will free himself from communion with evil.

Evil is not an actual substance, but absence of good; just as darkness is nothing but absence of light.

Grace is the food and clothing of the saints. It wakens grief in a man's heart, making him dissatisfied and moving him to seek the reason of this dissatisfaction. Grace gives sorrow and grace comforts; showing us the poverty of all things, it engenders in us a repentant sorrow for having fallen short of the love of God... One who is possessed by such sorrow will always grieve, for he thinks of God's offended love and not of the fear of hell. It is a grief of love.

Christ did not spare even His holy apostles from temptation, and He therefore gave them grace. When Satan himself began to wreak his malice on the Apostle Paul, Paul prayed that Satan be removed from him. But the Lord replied 'My grace is sufficient for thee.' In other words, if you have to suffer at Satan's hands, My grace is sufficient for your suffering. If you have to struggle with Satan, again my grace is sufficient for you. If you desire to overcome Satan, again My grace is sufficient. Grace is a weapon that can be used for everything. Grace is stronger than all adversities, all assaults, all the powers of darkness. Grace is both unconquerable and conquering. Therefore, my brethren, we must pray to God to give us His almighty grace. Grace is God dwelling in us. Grace is the Kingdom of God within us. When God's grace is within us, then it is day in our souls. And the day means light, knowledge and freedom from fear. We cannot ask here on earth, my brethren, for a greater gift from God than divine grace. Should we receive the entire universe as a gift, it would be less than the grace of God.

Grace does not bring despair, but it continually brings to repentance a person who has fallen.

The grace of God which brings peace and joy to the heart flees from the spiteful.

The grace of the Holy Spirit is the light which enlightens man.

The grace of the Spirit is one and unchanging, but energizes in each one of us as He wills. When rain falls upon the earth, it gives life to the quality inherent in each plant: sweetness in the sweet, astringency in the astringent; similarly, when grace falls upon the hearts of the faithful, it gives to each the energies appropriate to the different virtues without itself changing.

In this time of fasting and prayer, brethren, let us with all our hearts forgive anything or imaginary we have against anyone. May we all devote ourselves to love, and let us consider one another as an incentive to love and good works, speaking in defense of one another, having good thoughts and dispositions within us before God and men. In this way our fasting will be laudable and blameless, and our requests to God while we fast we will readily received. We shall rightly call upon Him as our Father by grace and we can boldly say to Him, 'Father, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors' (Matt. 6:12),

Great Lent - all of its services are united by the idea of preparing for Holy Pascha, to meet the Risen Christ with a clean heart.

A house roof is held up by the foundations and the rest of the building, and the foundations with the rest of the building are laid to hold the roof - since both are necessary and useful - and neither is the roof built without the foundations and the rest of the house, nor can foundations and walls without a roof make a building fit to live in. So it is with the soul: the grace of the Holy Spirit is preserved by keeping the commandments, and the keeping of commandments is the foundation laid for receiving the gift of God's grace. Neither does the grace of the Holy Spirit remain in us without our obeying the commandments, nor can obeying the commandments be useful and salutary without Divine grace.

When you ae conscious of the sweetness of divine grace working in you and when prayer operates in your heart, then you must continue in it. Do not interrupt it or rise up to sing psalms as long as God sees fit to leave its work in you, for to do so would be to leave God who is within, in order to call on Him outside yourself, as if one were to leave the heights to stoop down to the flats.

Till the advent of grace man lives his life and thinks that all is well and prosperous with his soul; but when grace visits him and dwells with him he sees himself quite otherwise, and losing grace again he realizes his unhappy state.

Along with an evil thought, a hostile power enters into us, and then the soul is clouded, and evil thoughts harass her.

The life of a man is leavened with afflictions and torments. When you see a little joy in your soul, know that it is a phone call telling you to endure the affliction that will come.

The zeal which wishes to destroy great evil without appropriate preparation is a great evil in itself.

Grace comes immediately to meet some of those who strive, giving them assurance of the earnest of their inheritance, (Eph. 1:14), letting them taste the promised prizes, as if stretching out a loving hand to welcome them and anointing them for further struggles. With others, however, grace waits for the end of the struggle, and prepares for them the crown of patience as well. As one of the God-bearing Fathers says, 'some receive holy rewards before their labors, some during their labors, and some when they depart.'

You know that evil entered into us through the transgression of the commandments. Hence it is obvious that by keeping them, evil departs from us. But without the doing of the commandments we should not even aspire or hope for purity of soul, because at the very outset we do not walk on the path that leads us to purity of soul. Do not say that God can give us the grace of purity of soul even without our keeping the commandments.

Filtered (29)
Filters
Search By Keyword
Filter By
See more See less
Topics (Love, Anger, Confession, etc.)
See more See less
Show (29)
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)