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

If we fervently desire holiness, the Holy Spirit at the outset gives the soul a full and conscious taste of God’s sweetness, so that the intellect will know exactly of what the final reward of the spiritual life consists.

Love and self-control purify the soul.

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

St. Paul says: 'The person engaged in spiritual warfare exercises self control in all things' (I Cor. 9:25). Aware of all that is said in divine Scripture, let us lead our life with self-control, especially in regard to food.

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.

If you lay down rules for yourself, do not disobey yourself; for he who cheats himself is self-deluded.

Holiness is not simply righteousness, for which the righteous are rewarded with blessedness in the Kingdom of God; rather, it is such a height of righteousness that people are so filled with the grace of God that it flows from them even upon those who associate with them. Great is their blessedness, which proceeds from their direct contemplation of the glory of God. Being filled also with love for men, which proceeds from love of God, they are responsive to men's needs, and at their entreaties they act as mediators and intercessors for them before God.

Control your stomach, sleep, anger, and tongue, and you will not 'dash your foot against a stone.'

Strive to walk worthily of the vocation to which you were called.

Lack of self-control is actually an evil both ancient and modern, though it did not precede its antidote, fasting. By means of our Forefathers' self-indulgence in paradise and their contempt for the fast already in existance there, death entered the world. Sin reigned and brought in the condemnation of our nature from Adam until Christ.

No virtue makes flesh-bound man so like a spiritual angel as does self-restraint, for it enables those still living on earth to become, as the Apostle says, 'citizens of heaven' (cf. Phil. 3:20).

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