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

Labor to acquire meekness. Concerning the heavenly virtues, meekness and humility, the Lord Himself teaches us, saying: Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls (Matt. 11:29). Learn not from angels, nor from men, but from Me, He says; that is, from the higher wisdom.

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.

Meekness consists in praying calmly and sincerely for a neighbor when he causes many turmoils.

We truly love God and keep His commandments if we restrain ourselves from our pleasures. For he who still abandons himself to unlawful desires certainly does not love God, since he contradicts Him in his own intentions. . . Therefore, he loves God truly, whose mind is not conquered by consent to evil delight. For the more one takes pleasure in lower things, the more he is separated from heavenly love.

Imitate the Publican and you will not be condemned with the Pharisee. Choose the meekness of Moses and you will find your heart which is a rock changed into a spring of water.

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.

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.

Meekness is a rock overlooking the sea of anger, which breaks all the waves that dash against it, yet remains completely unmoved.

The Scriptures were not given merely that we might have them in books, but that we might engrave them on our hearts.

If it is a mark of extreme meekness, even in the presence of one’s offender, to be peacefully and lovingly disposed towards him in one’s heart, then it is certainly a mark of hot temper when a person continues to quarrel and rage against his offender, both by words and gestures, even when by himself.

Let us not wallow in pleasures, that we might behold His glory in the day of His coming.

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

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).

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

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.

The soul's health consists in dispassion and spiritual knowledge; no slave to sensual pleasure can attain it.

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.

Reading the Scriptures is a great means of security against sinning.

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