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

The fathers say that a man who sets store by the gold and silver he can amass does not believe that there is a God who provides for him.

A lover of riches is never satisfied, no matter how many possessions he accumulates, but the more he acquires daily, the more his appetite increases; and a person forcibly pulled away from a stream of pure water before he has quenched his thirst feels even more thirsty. In a similar way, once one has experienced the taste of God, one can never be satisfied or have enough of it, but however much one is enriched by this wealth one still feels oneself to be poor. Christians do not set great store by their own lives, but regard themselves rather as rightly set at nought by God and as everyone’s servants.

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

We must resist and avoid like deadly poison the desire to possess earthly goods.

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.

All other possessions do not really belong to the one who has them or to the one who has acquired them for they are exchanged back and forth like a game of dice. Only virtue among our possessions cannot be taken away, but remains with us when we live and when we die.

Rivalry over material possessions has made us forget the counsel of the Lord, who urged us to take no thought for earthly things, but to seek only the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt. 6:33).

How destructive to the heart is even momentary attachment for anything earthly.

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

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

Go, sell all that belongs to you and give it to the poor and taking up the cross, deny yourself; in this way you will be able to pray without distraction.

The wealth is not a possession, it is not property, it is a loan for use.

The more you love money, the more securely you close the Kingdom of God.

The desire for possessions is dangerous and terrible, knowing no satiety; it drives the soul which it controls to the heights of evil. Therefore, let us drive it away vigorously from the beginning. For once it has become master it cannot be overcome.

He who has tasted the things on high easily despises what is below. But he who has not tasted the things above finds joy in possessions.

Do not the angels differ from us in this respect, that they do not want so many things as we do? Therefore the less we need, the more we are on our way to them; the more we need, the more we sink down to this perishable life.

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

A man who has embraced poverty offers up prayer that is pure, while a man who loves possessions prays to material images.

Filters
Search By Keyword
Topics (Love, Anger, Confession, etc.)
See more See less
Parish

Mailing Address

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)