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

Only with love is a weak person edified.

If you love the Sender, then also love the letter which is sent from Him to you. For the word of God is given by God to me, to you, and to everyone, so that everyone who desires to be saved may receive salvation through it.

Love is the Kingdom, which the Lord mystically promised His disciples to eat in His Kingdom. For when we hear Him say, 'You shall eat and drink at the table of My Kingdom,' what do we suppose we shall eat, if not love? Love is sufficient to nourish a man instead of food and drink. This is the wine 'which makes glad the heart of man.' Blessed is he who partakes of this wine! Licentious men have drunk this wine and felt shame; sinners have drunk it and have forgotten the pathways of stumbling; drunkards have drunk this wine and became firm in virtue; the rich have drunk it and desired poverty; the poor have drunk it and been enriched with hope; the sick have drunk it and become strong; the unlearned have taken it and been made wise.

Love is joy; the price of love is sacrifice. Love is life; the price of love is death.

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

And so it often comes about that the life of one burning with love after having sinned is more pleasing to God than a life of innocence that grows languid in its sense of security.

For love does not seek its own, it labors, sweats, watches to build up the brother: nothing is inconvenient to love, and by the help of God it turns the impossible into the possible.... Love believes and hopes.... It is ashamed of nothing. Without it, what is the use of prayer? What use are hymns and singing? What is the use of building and adorning churches? What is mortification of the flesh if the neighbor is not loved? Indeed, all are of no consequence. As an animal cannot exist without bodily warmth, so no good deed can be alive without true love; it is only the pretence of a good deed.

Let us consider one another, but not so as to cause rivalry between one another, but provoking one another unto charity. What is the meaning of, to provoke unto charity? Unto loving each other more and more.

All the treasures of the world are nothing to me if love is absent, all the honors of the world are lowly and dead without love. Love is for me life, light and joy. This sad world does not know this love and calls darkness light.

Do not approach the words of the mysteries contained in the divine Scriptures without prayer and beseeching God for help, but say: 'Lord, grant me to perceive the power in them!' Reckon prayer to be the key to the true understanding of the divine Scriptures.

Until we find love, our labor is in the land of tares, and in the midst of tares we both sow and reap, even if our seed is the seed of righteousness.

Do not hesitate to go late at night to those places where you usually feel afraid. But if you yield only a little to such weakness, then this childish and ridiculous infirmity will grow old with you. As you go on your way, arm yourself with prayer. When you reach the place, stretch out your hands. Flog your enemies with the name of Jesus, for there is no stronger weapon in heaven or earth. When you get rid of the disease of fear, praise Him who has delivered you. If you continue to be thankful, He will protect you for ever.

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.'

Love and humility form a holy pair; what the first builds, the second binds, thus preventing the building from falling asunder.

As memory of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not produce the light of knowledge in the soul.

If anyone thinks that he has love but does not have the same love for all, but distinguishes between persons, separating the lowly from the rich, the infirm from the healthy, a sinner from a righteous man, one far off from one near, one who is an enemy from one who loves you, such love is not perfect, but partial. Actual and perfect love consists in considering everyone and loving them equally, both those who love you and those who hate you. Such love, with which mercy is inseparable, is, in brief, a net for all virtues. It embraces and contains all the commandments of God within itself.

If you find that you have no love but desire to have it, do the works of love and the Lord will see your desire and effort and put love in your heart.

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.

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