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

You must set about rooting out the very desire to have things pleasant, to get on well, to be contented. You must learn to like sadness, poverty, pain, hardship. You must learn to follow privately the Lord's bidding: not to speak empty words, not to adorn yourself, always to obey authority, not to look at a woman with desire, not to be angry and much else. For all these biddings are given us not in order for us to act as if they did not exist, but for us to follow: otherwise the Lord of mercy would not have burdened us with them. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, He said (Matthew 16:24), thereby leaving it to each person's own will-if any man will-and to each person's endeavor: let him deny himself.

Self-knowledge is a true idea of one's spiritual growth, and an unbroken remembrance of one's slightest sins.

Only with the greatest struggle and sacrifice is the chaff of heresy separated from the wheat of Orthodox truth.

Nothing is better than to realize one's weakness and ignorance, and nothing is worse than not to be aware of them.

One who is capable of seeing himself is better than one who has been made worthy to see angels.

Strive to walk worthily of the vocation to which you were called.

Beware of reading the doctrines of heretics for they, more than anything else, can equip the spirit of blasphemy against you.

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

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

A holy man told us one day, that the source of all heresies and schisms in the church was, loving God too little, and ourselves too much.

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.

Almost every sin is committed for the sake of sensual pleasure; and sensual pleasure is overcome by hardship and distress arising either voluntarily from repentance, or else involuntarily as a result of some salutary and providential reversal.

Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)