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Quotes

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

Spiritual reading, vigils and prayer bring the straying intellect to stability.

True repentance consists of withdrawing from sin and nurturing hatred for it. For, lo, when someone says from his heart: I have hated deceit and been repelled by it - then God accepts him with joy.

Deeper spiritual knowledge helps the hard hearted man: for unless he has fear, he refuses to accept the labor of repentance.

Repentance is real when afterwards you keep trying strenuously to live now as you ought; but without this it is not very effectual, if you repent just to say your sins & to keep on living as before.

The Lord commands all men to repent (Matt. 4:17), so that even the spiritual and those making progress should not neglect this injunction and fail to give attention to the smallest and most subtle errors.

He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort which cancels his former sins, but through this effort he makes his peace with God.

Repentance is the door of mercy, opened to those who seek it.

Even if all spiritual fathers, patriarchs, hierarchs, and all the people forgive you, you are unforgiven if you don't repent in action.

Repentance signifies regret, change of mind. The distinguishing marks of repentance are contrition, tears, aversion towards sin, and love of the good.

Whoever repents sincerely is prepared to withstand any sorrow: hunger and homelessness, cold and heat, illness and poverty, humiliation and banishment, lies and slander, for the soul seeks God and does not concern itself with anything worldly, but instead prays with a clear mind.

If the main goal of the repentant sinner should be total, light-bearing and blessed communion with God, then the main hindrance to this is the existence of the passions still active and working in him - the virtues being as yet unsealed in him - and the unrighteousness of his powers. Therefore his main work upon conversion and repentance should be the uprooting of the passions and sealing the virtues - in a word, correcting himself.

First, one prays with the simplicity typical of beginners and by shedding copious tears. All this is due to the grace of God which is called purifying grace, which catches us like a fish-hook, and guides us towards repentance. For it is our God, Who is good in all and to all, Who finds us. He sees us. He invites Himself known to us first. Then we get to know Him, after He anoints us with His divine mercy. Hence, repentance, mourning, tears, and everything that happens to someone who repents, is all due to divine grace. This is purifying grace which cleanses man.

Repentance raises the fallen, mourning knocks at the gate of Heaven, and holy humility opens it.

It is more serious to lose hope than to sin. The traitor Judas was a defeatist, inexperienced in spiritual warfare; as a result he was reduced to despair by the enemy's onslaught, and he went and hanged himself. Peter, on the other hand, was a firm rock: although brought down by a terrible fall, yet because of his experience in spiritual warfare he was not broken by despair, but leaping up he shed bitter tears from a contrite and humiliated heart. And as soon as our enemy saw them, he recoiled as if his eyes had been burnt by searing flames, and he took flight...

Constantly bear in mind that, in the eyes of God, a penitent sinner is preferable to a proud man who has not sinned otherwise than his pride…

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.

This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.

Repentance not only cleanses a person from sins, but also sharpens his sight so that he sees himself more clearly.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)