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

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

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

One should nourish the soul with the word of God: for the word of God, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, is angelic bread, by which are nourished souls who hunger for God. Most of all, one should occupy oneself with reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which one should do standing up. From this there occurs an enlightenment in the mind, which is in the mind, which is changed by a Divine change.

Virtue does not have a bell that rings to rouse your curiosity, to make you turn and see him. It is an immaterial gift of God.

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

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (Genesis 41:57, 46:6).

Virtue is not accounted virtue if it is not accompanied by difficulty and labors.

Control your appetites before they control you.

The blacksmith, who pounds a piece of iron, has previously thought about what he wants to make- a sickle, a knife, an axe - and works accordingly. And so let the man of God ponder in advance which vir­tue he wishes to acquire, in order not to toil aimlessly.

A Christian has great difficulty in attaining three things: grief (over sins), tears, and the continual memory of death. Yet these contain all of the other virtues.

True virtue consists in victory over one’s own self, not to do what our corrupt nature wills, but what the holy will of God desires.

Virtues are connected with suffering.

The devout soul, even if it practices all the virtues, ascribes everything to God and nothing to itself.

The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...

A greedy appetite for food is terminated by satiety and the pleasure of drinking ends when our thirst is quenched. And so it is with the other things... But the possession of virtue, once it is solidly achieved, cannot be measured by time nor limited by satiety. Rather, to those who are its disciples it always appears as something ever new and fresh.

You will pay glorious homage to God if, through virtues, you imprint His likeness on your soul.

The Scriptures were not given merely that we might have them in books, but that we might engrave them on our hearts.

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

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