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

If you have received from God the gift of knowledge, however limited, beware of neglecting charity and temperance. They are virtues which radically purify the soul from passions and so open the way of knowledge continually.

A fish swiftly escapes a hook and a sensual soul shuns solitude.

Nothing is better for rendering the heart penitent and the soul humble than wise solitude and complete silence.

If someone is judged worthy to receive the gift of knowledge but allows his heart to be full of bitterness or rancor or aversion to another, it is as if he had been struck in the eye by a thornbush. That is why knowledge is no good without charity.

Fear of the Lord conquers desire, and distress that accords with God's will repulses sensual pleasure.

Solitude offers us an excellent opportunity for calming our passions and giving our reason time to remove them thoroughly from our soul. For just as wild animals can be soothed by being stroked, so all our anger, fear and stress, which poison and disrupt our soul, can be soothed by an atmosphere of peace where the freedom from constant disturbance ensures that our soul can be brought more easily under the power of reason.

The vain desires of this world separate us from our homeland; love of them and habit clothe our soul as if in a hideous garment. We, traveling on the journey of this life and calling on God to help us, ought to be divesting ourselves of this hideous garment and clothing ourselves in new desires, in a new love of the age to come, and thereby to receive knowledge of how near or how far we are from our heavenly homeland.

In detachment, the spirit finds quiet and repose for coveting nothing. Nothing wearies it by elation, and nothing oppresses it by dejection, because it stands in the center of its own humility.

Nothing so fills the heart with contrition and humbles the soul as solitude embraced with self-awareness, and utter silence.

The arrows of the enemy cannot touch one who loves quietness; but he who moves about in a crowd will often be wounded.

Every man that loves God loves a quiet life.

Control your appetites before they control you.

Self-control and strenuous effort curb desire; stillness and intense longing for God wither it.

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5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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