• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

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.

A true monk does no reproach and does not praise.

Let each one consider within himself what faults he must remedy in himself, what good work he may yet do, what sin he may wipe out from his soul, so that by this he may become better. And if he finds that he has made progress in this excellent market, through fasting, and is aware that there is need for much care for his wounds, then let him draw near. If however he remains neglectful of himself, and has only his fasting to show, and makes no progress in other directions, then let him remain outside, and let him return only when all his sins are cleansed.

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

A treasure that is known is quickly spent: and even so any virtue that is commented on and made a public show of is destroyed. Even as wax is melted before the face of fire, so is the soul enfeebled by praise, and loses the toughness of its virtue.

The man who is conscious of his sins is greater than he who profits the whole world by the sight of his countenance.

Our enemies (demons) fell because of their pride, and call us to follow them, and bring us feelings of praise. And if your soul accepts that praise, then grace will depart, until the soul becomes humble again. And so all your life you must learn the humility of Christ.

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

In the evening, on going to sleep (an image of death for the life of that day); examine your actions during the day that has passed. Such an examination is not difficult for one who leads an attentive life, because attention destroys that forgetfulness which is so characteristic of a distracted person. And thus, recalling all your sins in deed, word, thought and feeling, offer repentance over them to God with the disposition and heartfelt promise of correction.

It is a great work to shake from the soul the praise of men, but to reject the praise of demons is greater.

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.

Pay no attention to praise and fear it; remember what one of the holy fathers says: 'If someone praises you, expect reproaches from him too.'

There is one method which, if practiced with full attention, will seldom allow anything passionate to slip unnoticed into the heart. This is to examine our thoughts and feelings, so as to discover which they tend: towards pleasing God or towards pleasing ourselves.

How harmful is the praise of man! Even though a person may have done something worthy of praise, when he enjoys the sound of praise he is already deprived of future glory, according to teachings of the holy fathers.

Every evening we must test ourselves as to how the day passed with us, and every morning we again should test ourselves as to how the night passed.

If they will praise you, you must remain silent—do not say anything.

Whoever reproaches us gives us a gift, but whoever praises us, steals from us.

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

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Parish

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

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