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

If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions, you cannot reap God's mercy.

When we turn our spirit from the contemplation of God, we become the slaves of carnal passions.

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

It is not safe to swim in one's clothes, nor should a slave of passion touch theology.

Free me from my wanton habits before the end overtakes me...

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...

The ignorance of Scripture is a great cliff and a deep abyss; to know nothing of the divine laws is a great betrayal of salvation.

If Nabuzardan, the court cook of the King of the Babylonians, had not gone to Jerusalem, then the Temple would not have burned (cf. 2 Kings 24), That is to say, a person’s mind is not attacked by the flames of carnal pleasures, if a person is not conquered by gluttony.

Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passions.

The more one reads and studies the Bible, the more he finds reasons to study it as often and as frequently as he can. According to St. John Chrysostom, it is like an aromatic root, which produces more and more aroma the more it is rubbed.

If someone is judged worthy to receive the gift of knowledge but allows his heart to be full of bitterness or rancor or aversion to another, it is as if he had been struck in the eye by a thornbush. That is why knowledge is no good without charity.

So long as the soul is sick with passions, its senses have no perception of the spiritual; and the soul does not even know how to desire it, but desires it only from hearsay and writings. The power of the soul is cured of these diseases by the hidden practice of commandments, with sharing in Christ's passion.

The soul that is given over to the will of God fears nothing: neither thunder nor thieves nor any such thing. Whatever may come, 'Such is God's pleasure,' she says. If she falls sick she thinks, 'This means that I need sickness, or God would not have sent it.'

Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.

Fear is a rehearsing of danger beforehand; or again, fear is a trembling sensation of the heart, alarmed and troubled by unknown misfortunes. Fear is a loss of assurance.

Do not allow a passion to harden into a habit.

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

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

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