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Quotes

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

Above all pray for the gift of tears...

It is not food that is evil but gluttony; not childbearing but fornication; not money but cupidity; not glory but vainglory. If this be so there is no evil in anything that is, except wrong use, which results from our mind neglecting to cultivate our nature (the powers of the soul, and their right direction).

Greater than baptism itself is the fountain of tears after baptism, even though it is somewhat audacious to say so. For baptism is the washing away of evils that were in us before, but sins committed after baptism are washed away by tears. As baptism is received in infancy, we have all defiled it, but we cleanse it anew with tears. And if God in His love for mankind had not given us tears, those being saved would be few indeed and hard to find.

The belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation. The cause of the overthrow and wantonness of Sodom was not drunkenness through wine, but fullness of bread. Hear the Lord rebuking Jerusalem through the prophet. 'For how did thy sister Sodom sin, except in that she ate her bread in fullness and abundance?' (Ezek. xvi. 49)

If a person swallows too much food, he is inviting impure thoughts. If he mortifies the stomach, he is creating pure thoughts. Often a lion if it is caressed becomes domesticated, whereas the more you coddle the body, the more it goes wild.

As writing is washed out by water, so sins can be washed out by tears.

One should not ponder divine matters on a full stomach, say the ascetics. For the well-fed, even the most superficial secrets of the Trinity lie hidden.

BROTHER: What are fasting and prayer? OLD MAN: Fasting is the subjugation of the body, prayer is converse with God, vigil is a war against Satan, abstinence is being weaned from meats, humility is the state of the first man, kneeling is the inclining of the body before the Judge, tears are the remembrance of sins, nakedness is our captivity which is caused by the transgression of the command, and service is constant supplication to and praise of God. BROTHER: Are these able to redeem the soul? OLD MAN: When internal things agree with external, and manifest humility appears in the hidden works which are from within, verily, a man shall be redeemed from the weight of the body.

When you shed floods of tears during prayer, do not exalt yourself for this, as though you were above many others. It is that your prayer has received help from above, so that, having zealously confessed your sins, you may incline the almighty to mercy by your tears.

Such tears should be preserved... because they have great power and action in destroying and uprooting sins and passions.

What rain is for seeds tears are for those who are afflicted.

Satiety of the stomach dries the tear sprints, but the stomach when dried produces these waters.

Understand what I say: there can be no knowledge of the mysteries of God on a full stomach.

Only the tears of repentance are able to cleanse the soul.

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.

If you have received from God the gift of knowledge, however limited, beware of neglecting charity and temperance. They are virtues which radically purify the soul from passions and so open the way of knowledge continually.

As the earth, long awaiting moistening and at last receiving it in abundance, suddenly is covered by tender and bright greenery, so also the heart, exhausted by dryness, and afterwards revived by tears, emits from itself a multitude of spiritual thoughts and feelings, adorned by the common flower of humility. The labor of weeping, being inseparable from the labor of prayer, requires the same conditions for success as prayer requires. Prayer needs patient, constant dwelling in itself; weeping requires the same. Prayer needs wearying of the body, and brings about exhaustion of the body; this exhaustion produces weeping, which must be born in the troubling and wearying of the body.

In truth, the moisture in the eyes drains the anger in the heart.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)