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

Love and self-control purify the soul.

Control your stomach, sleep, anger, and tongue, and you will not 'dash your foot against a stone.'

Lack of self-control is actually an evil both ancient and modern, though it did not precede its antidote, fasting. By means of our Forefathers' self-indulgence in paradise and their contempt for the fast already in existance there, death entered the world. Sin reigned and brought in the condemnation of our nature from Adam until Christ.

If you lay down rules for yourself, do not disobey yourself; for he who cheats himself is self-deluded.

Self-control and strenuous effort curb desire; stillness and intense longing for God wither it.

St. Paul says: 'The person engaged in spiritual warfare exercises self control in all things' (I Cor. 9:25). Aware of all that is said in divine Scripture, let us lead our life with self-control, especially in regard to food.

In everything we do, God looks as the aim, whether it is for Him or for some other purpose we act. So, when we wish to do something good, let us have as our aim not to please men but to please God, so as to have our eyes always fixed on Him, doing everything for Him, lest we bear the labor but lose the reward.

In all our actions God looks at the intention, whether we do them for Him or from some other motive.

No virtue makes flesh-bound man so like a spiritual angel as does self-restraint, for it enables those still living on earth to become, as the Apostle says, 'citizens of heaven' (cf. Phil. 3:20).

If we want to do something but cannot, then before God, Who knows our hearts, it is as if we have done it. This is true whether the intended action is good or bad.

Feeding the hungry is a greater work than raising the dead.

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

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