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Quotes

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

In general, loquacity opens the doors of the soul, and the devout warmth of the heart at once escapes. Empty talk does the same, but even more so… Empty talk is the door to criticism and slander, the spreader of false rumors and opinions, the sower of discord and strife. It stifles the taste for mental work and almost always serves as a cover for the absence of sound knowledge…

He who guards his lips preserves his soul; but he who is bold with his lips dishonors himself.

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.

True joy is the joy of consolation, the joy that wells up in the knowledge of one's own weakness and the Lord's mercy, and that does not need the bared teeth of laughter to express itself.

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.

A person lighting a fire first has a small piece of tinder. This represents the word of the brother who has upset him. This little fire is very feeble. What significance has the word of your brother? If you put up with it you blow out the small fire, but if you begin to think to yourself, 'Why did he say that to me? I myself can answer him. If he did not want to hurt me, he wouldn't have said that and believe me, I can upset him too.' In this case, you add small pieces of wood to the fire and some other fuel like the person that lights a fire and you produce smoke which is agitation. Agitation is the movement and coming together of thoughts which stimulate the heart and make it audacious. Audacity is the taking of retribution against the person that has upset you, and this becomes insolence as Abba Mark said, 'Evil accepted in thought makes the heart audacious, but when this is revoked through prayer and hope, it makes it contrite.'

A single word made the thief pure and holy, despite all his previous crimes, and brought him into paradise (cf. Luke 23:42-43). A single ill-advised word prevented Moses from entering the promised land (cf. Num. 20:12). We should not suppose, then, that garrulity is only a minor disease. Lovers of slander and gossip shut themselves out of the kingdom of heaven.

Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye like a mirror in which the appearance of our inner being can be seen.

What is the source from which man's will can draw suitable principles of guidance? For a non-believer, an answer to this is extremely difficult and essentially impossible. Are they to be drawn from science? In the first place, science is interested primarily in questions of knowledge and not morals, and secondly, it does not contain anything solid and constant in principles because it is constantly changing. From philosophy? Philosophy teaches about the relativity of its truths and does not claim their unconditional authority. From practical life? Even less. This life itself is in need of positive principles which can remove from it unruly and unprincipled conditions. But while the answer to the present question is so difficult for non-believers, for a believing Christian the answer is simple and clear. The source of good principles is God's will, and this is revealed to us in the Savior's teaching, in His Holy Gospel. It alone has an unconditional, steadfast authority in this regard; and it alone teaches us self-sacrifice and Christian freedom, Christian equality and brotherhood (a concept stolen by those outside the Faith). The Lord Himself said of true Christians, 'Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father' (Matt. 7:21).

The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...

Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.

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

He who guards his lips, watches over his soul; but he who is bold with his lips, dishonors himself. Silence gathers, but much talking scatters.

You have a mouth sealed by the Spirit? When you are speaking, think first of what you are saying, of what words are fitting for a mouth such as yours.

But let us speak that which is good, to the edification of faith. That is, to speak only what will help to build up our neighbor in virtue; nothing more than that.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)