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Quotes

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

Those who live in obedience are strangers to love of money. For where even the body has been given up, what is left to be one's own? Only in one way can they be harmed, namely by being ready and quick to go from place to place. I have seen material possessions make monks patient to remain in one place. But I praise those who are pilgrims for the Lord.

He who reveres the Lord does what is commanded, and if he commits some sin or disobeys Him, endures whatever he has to suffer for this as being his desert.

The grace of the Spirit is one and unchanging, but energizes in each one of us as He wills. When rain falls upon the earth, it gives life to the quality inherent in each plant: sweetness in the sweet, astringency in the astringent; similarly, when grace falls upon the hearts of the faithful, it gives to each the energies appropriate to the different virtues without itself changing.

Obedience is the medicine compounded of virtues, giving life to those who drink it, and the knife which, with one cut, cleans festering wounds. A man who, in faith and simplicity, has chosen to wield this knife, at once cuts off all passions, more completely than anyone...

Grace comes immediately to meet some of those who strive, giving them assurance of the earnest of their inheritance, (Eph. 1:14), letting them taste the promised prizes, as if stretching out a loving hand to welcome them and anointing them for further struggles. With others, however, grace waits for the end of the struggle, and prepares for them the crown of patience as well. As one of the God-bearing Fathers says, 'some receive holy rewards before their labors, some during their labors, and some when they depart.'

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.

He who wishes to tear up the account of his sins and to be inscribed in the Divine book of the saved, can find for this purpose no better means than obedience.

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Fear God and keep His commandments both in your feelings and in your intellect. If you force yourself to keep them in your intellect, bit by bit you will attain to fulfilling them in your feelings.

He is not yet a faithful servant who bases himself on bare knowledge alone; a faithful servant is he who professes his faith by obedience to Christ, Who gave the commandments.

Therefore silence, prayer, obedience; when you practice these virtues with the help of God, then you will know the light of Christ is within your soul.

As it is not possible to walk without feet or fly without wings, so it is impossible to attain the Kingdom of Heaven without the fulfillment of the commandments.

There is no shorter ascent to the royal and Divine mansions...than through subduing the five passions hostile to obedience, namely: disobedience, argumentativeness, self-gratification, self-justification and pernicious high opinion of oneself...Disobedience is the mouth of hell; argumentativeness its tongue, whetted like a sword; self-gratification is its sharp teeth; self-justification its throat; high opinion of oneself, which casts one into hell, is the belching of its all-devouring belly. But he who, through obedience, conquers the first, by one stroke cuts off all the rest and with one stride reaches heaven.

Truly great is the mystery of obedience. Since our sweet Jesus first marked out this path and became a model for us, aren’t we obliged to follow Him?

A truly intelligent man has only one care -- wholeheartedly to obey Almighty God and to please Him. The one and only thing he teaches his soul is how best to do things agreeable to God, thanking Him for His merciful Providence in whatever may happen in his life. For just as it would be unseemly not to thank physicians for curing our body, even when they give us bitter and unpleasant remedies, so too would it be to remain ungrateful to God for things that appear to us painful, failing to understand that everything happens through His Providence for our good. In this understanding and this faith in God lie salvation and peace of soul.

Just as the result of disobedience is sin, so the result of obedience is virtue.

The grace of God which brings peace and joy to the heart flees from the spiteful.

Favors are given in exchange of faith. Grace is poured out, which faith receives. And as from a fountain some draw a little water in little vessels, and others draw more in bigger vessels, the fountain not distinguishing between the one vessel and the other, since it is the vessels, not the fountain, that measures the water, and each draws according to his measure; and as the splendor of light enters to a greater or less degree according to the dimensions of the window, so is grace received according to the measure of our desire.

Willing obedience is an action which shows more courage and strength of spirit than subjugating great kings and ruling over them…

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)