Quotes

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

End-Times

When our hearts are reluctant we often have to compel ourselves to pray for our enemies, to pour out prayer for those who are against us. Would that our hearts were filled with love! How frequently we offer a prayer for our enemies, but do it because we are commanded to, not out of love for them. We ask the gift of life for them even while we are afraid that our prayer may be heard. The Judge of our souls considers our hearts rather than our words. Those who do not pray for their enemies out of love are not asking anything for their benefit.

St. Gregory the Great

End-Times

Unfortunately today sin superabounded and superexceeded and people who call light darkness and darkness light; truth falsehood and falsehood truth; sweet bitter and bitter sweet; good evil and evil good. We find these people in all ranks of society except for a few select people, for whose sake may the Lord have mercy on us.

Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Watchfulness

The heart of a man who oversees his soul at all times is made joyous by revelations.

St. Isaac the Syrian

Watchfulness

Guard your mind with extreme intensity of attention.

St. Philotheus of Sinai

End-Times

Today’s great enemy of truth, drawing men to perdition, is delusion.

St. Gregory of Sinai

Watchfulness

A wise man is one who pays attention to himself and is quick to separate himself from all defilement.

St. Thalassios the Libyan

Watchfulness

Continually take careful note of your inner intention: watch carefully which way it inclines, and discover whether it is for God and the sake of goodness itself and the benefit of your soul...

St. Gregory of Sinai

Watchfulness

Smoke from wood kindling a fire troubles the eyes; but then the fire gives them light and gladdens them. Similarly, unceasing attentiveness is irksome; but when, invoked in prayer, Jesus draws near, He illumines the heart; for remembrance of Him confers on us spiritual enlightenment and the highest of all blessings.

St. Philotheus of Sinai

Watchfulness

It is impossible for the soul to attain anything spiritual and pleasing to God, or to be free of inner sin, without guarding of the mind and purity of heart, in other words, without sobriety... If with God's help we gain something daily through our sobriety, we should take care not to enter into communication with other people without discrimination, lest we suffer loss through our converse with them and are led into temptation.

St. Hesychius the Priest

End-Times

Men will become proud, ungrateful, rejecting Divine law. Together with the falling away from life will be a weakening of moral life. There will be an exhaustion of good and an increase of evil.

St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco

Watchfulness

No Christian believing rightly in God should ever be off his guard. He should always be on the look-out for temptation, so that when it comes he will not be surprised or disturbed, but will gladly endure the toil and affliction it causes, and so will understand what he is saying when he chants with the prophet: 'Prove me, O Lord, and try me' (Ps. 26:2 LXX). For the prophet did not say, 'Thy correction has destroyed me,' but, 'it has upheld me to the end' (Ps. 18:35 LXX).

Ilias the Presbyter

Watchfulness

We must vigilantly guard our heart from unfitting thoughts and impressions, according to the word of the writer of Proverbs: ‘Keep thine heart with the utmost care; for out of these are the issues of life,’ (Proverbs 4:23).

St. Seraphim of Sarov

Watchfulness

God asks only this of us, that our heart be purified through watchfulness.

St. Symeon the New Theologian

Watchfulness

We should zealously cultivate watchfulness, my brethren; and when, our mind purified in Christ Jesus, we are exalted by the vision it confers, we should review our sins and our former life, so that shattered and humbled at the thought of them we may never lose the help of Jesus Christ our God in the invisible battle.

St. Hesychius the Priest

End-Times

'Why is the Mother of God weeping?...' people ask.... Are your eyes closed, or have you yourselves, according to the Lord’s prophet, closed your eyes and stopped your ears, so as not to see and not to hear what is taking place in the world?! It is enough that the Lord’s commandments are forgotten, and for the contemporary 'Christians' Christian moral conceptions of modesty and decency, of obedience to the Church, to her saving discipline and regulations, are in complete disregard; no, now we behold something even more horrifying and hideous, when the expansion of so-called 'ecumenism'-- a poisonous adulteration of Christianity and church-ness-- is being offered to people, and at the same time obvious anti-Christianity is being legalized, and a 'Christian' state, under the false understanding of the word 'freedom,' permits the open worship of God’s enemy, Satan, in one of its great cities, as a permissible and lawful form of religion... O Tempora - O Mores!

St. Philaret of New York

Watchfulness

The heart which is constantly guarded, and is not allowed to receive the forms, images and fantasies of the dark and evil spirits, is conditioned by nature to give birth from within itself to thoughts filled with light. For just as coal engenders a flame, or a flame lights a candle, so will God, who from our baptism dwells in our heart, kindle our mind to contemplation when He finds it free from the winds of evil and protected by the guarding of the intellect.

St. Hesychius the Priest

Watchfulness

Watchfulness cleanses the conscience and makes it lucid. Thus cleansed, it immediately shines like a light that has been uncovered, banishing such darkness. Once this darkness has been banished through constant and genuine watchfulness, the conscience then reveals things hidden from us.

St. Philotheus of Sinai

Watchfulness

Your enemy, the evil one, the father of lies, does not slumber; and endeavors, by every means open to him, to harden your heart --- to make it false and crafty, to drive out from it faith and hope in God - together with love for Him and love and sympathy for your neighbor - and to occupy you with worldly, temporal interests. Watch yourself, watch the thoughts of your heart, and do not bind yourself in the chains of worldly desires and pleasures. Let your happiness be in the one God and the human soul.

St. John of Kronstadt

Parish

Faith

Ministries

News

Calendar

Contact

The heart of a man who oversees his soul at all times is made joyous by revelations.

Guard your mind with extreme intensity of attention.

Today’s great enemy of truth, drawing men to perdition, is delusion.

A wise man is one who pays attention to himself and is quick to separate himself from all defilement.

Continually take careful note of your inner intention: watch carefully which way it inclines, and discover whether it is for God and the sake of goodness itself and the benefit of your soul...

Men will become proud, ungrateful, rejecting Divine law. Together with the falling away from life will be a weakening of moral life. There will be an exhaustion of good and an increase of evil.

We must vigilantly guard our heart from unfitting thoughts and impressions, according to the word of the writer of Proverbs: ‘Keep thine heart with the utmost care; for out of these are the issues of life,’ (Proverbs 4:23).

God asks only this of us, that our heart be purified through watchfulness.

Watchfulness cleanses the conscience and makes it lucid. Thus cleansed, it immediately shines like a light that has been uncovered, banishing such darkness. Once this darkness has been banished through constant and genuine watchfulness, the conscience then reveals things hidden from us.

"Even if we have innumerable virtues, the plague of vainglory is capable of destroying them all. If, then, we desire praises let us seek those which come from God."

St. John Chrysostom

Join our Parish Mailing List