• 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Consider, Christian, what vows you made and to Whom. It is a grievous thing to lie to a man; how incomparably more grievous it is to lie to God.

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.

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

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Parish

Mailing Address

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

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