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Quotes

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

How much joy, how much peace of soul would a man not have wherever he went... if he was one who habitually accused himself.

Do not shun poverty and afflictions, these wings of buoyant prayer.

The good man thinks to himself in this wise: Every one who has strayed from the truth brings destruction on himself and is therefore to be pitied. But of course the man who has not learned the love of the Holy Spirit will not pray for his enemies. The man who has learned love from the Holy Spirit sorrows all his life over those who are not saved, and sheds abundant tears for the people, and the grace of God gives him strength to love his enemies.

Accept whatever the Lord sends with a willing spirit and do not groan at what is imposed on you, for why should you feel joy at being part of that crowd or pain at being excluded from it? Rather we should do everything to ensure that we are not excluded from the city of God.

Every tribulation reveals the state of our will, whether it inclines to the right or to the left. An unexpected tribulation is called temptation, because it subjects a man to a test of his secret dispositions.

Self-condemnation always brings peace and rest to the heart.

There can be no crowns without contests.

When you face bitter situations spiritually, eventually they become sweet.

A prayer offered while one has any cause to reproach a fellow man is an impure prayer. There is only one whom the praying person may and must reproach, and that is himself. Without self-reproach, your prayer is as worthless as it is while you are reproaching someone else in your heart. Perhaps you ask: How can one learn this? The answer is: One learns it through prayer.

Remember always that, once we have decided consciously to strive after righteousness, we cannot escape catastrophes and sorrows, no matter where we are.

If you harbor rancor against anybody, pray for him and you will prevent the passion from being aroused; for by means of prayer you will separate your resentment from the thought of the wrong he has done you. When you have become loving and compassionate towards him, you will wipe the passion completely from your soul.

God's Scripture gives proof in numerous passages that man must undergo many disturbances in this life; and also that many consolations are at hand. With these, a spirit of sufficient vigor and awareness of the right should overcome present discomforts and look to those things that promise everlasting joy.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

He who like Job and the courageous martyrs bears the assaults of unsought-for trials and temptations with an unshakeable will is a powerful lamp; for by his bravery and patience he keeps the light of salvation burning, since he possesses the Lord as his strength and his song. (cf. Ps. 118: 14).

The more a man struggles to do good, the more fear grows in him, until it shows him his slightest faults, those which he thought of as nothing while he was still in the darkness of ignorance.

If we want to do something but cannot, then before God, Who knows our hearts, it is as if we have done it. This is true whether the intended action is good or bad.

He who smells the smell of one's own foul odor doesn't smell the foul odor of anyone else.

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My son, says Scripture, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for trial, set you heart straight, and patiently endure (Eccles. 2:1-2). And elsewhere it is said: Accept everything that comes as good, knowing that nothing occurs without God willing it. Thus the soul that wishes to do God's will must strive above all to acquire patient endurance and hope. For one of the tricks of the devil is to make us listless at times of affliction, so that we give up our hope in the Lord. God never allows a soul that hopes in Him to be so oppressed by trials that it is put to utter confusion. As St. Paul writes: God is to be trusted not to let us be tried beyond our strength, but with the trial He will provide a way out, so that we are able to bear it (I Cor. 10:13). The devil harasses the soul not as much as he wants but as much as God allows him to. Men know what burden may be placed on a mule, what on a donkey, and what on a camel, and load each beast accordingly; and the potter knows how long he must leave the pots in the fire, so that they are not cracked by staying in it too long or rendered useless by being taken out of it before they are properly fired. If human understanding extends this far, must not God be much more aware, infinitely more aware, of the degree of trial it is right to impose on each soul, so that it become tried and true, fit for the kingdom of heaven?

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

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