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

All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.

Do not hate the sinner. Become a proclaimer of God's grace, seeing that God provides for you even though you are unworthy.

Those who have sinned must not despair. Let that never be. For we are condemned not for the multitude of evils, but because we do not want to repent...

Truth is the foundation of everything that has been created. Let truth be also the foundation of all your works (both inward and outward), and especially the foundation of your prayers. Let all your life, all your works, all your thoughts, and all your desires be founded upon truth.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

He who does not consciously choose to distance himself from a cause for sin, will be drawn to sin, even against his will.

If however any one thinks that he is not being burned when sinning, to him the Scripture saith, Shall a man wrap up fire in his bosom, and not burn his clothes? For sin burns the sinews of the soul, and breaks the spiritual bones of the mind, and darkens the light of the heart.

Greater therefore is the rejoicing of heaven over the sinner converted than upon the soul that remained just. A captain in battle will feel a warmer regard for the soldier who at first faltered and ran, and then had bravely fought back, than over the one who had never yielded yet had never thrust bravely forward. So will the farmer love more the fields that cleaned of their weeds now bear a fruitful yield, than the land which had never known thorns, yet had never yielded a bountiful crop.

Sin, to one who loves God, is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle. The true Christian is a warrior fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen enemy to his heavenly homeland.

There is a sin which is always 'unto death' [1 Jn 5:16]; the sin which we have not repented. Even a saint's prayers will not be heard for the unrepented sin. The person who repents correctly does not imagine that his sins are cancelled through his own effort; but knows that through this effort he makes peace with God.

The man who has come to loathe sin has mounted the first rung of the heavenly ladder.

If you feel no pang in committing minor offences you will through them fall into major transgressions.

Woe is he who knowingly chooses to sin with the intention to repent when morning comes, for he knows not what the coming day or the night that precedes it will bring.

In Christianity truth is not a philosophical concept nor is it a theory, a teaching, or a system, but rather, it is the living theanthropic hypostasis - the historical Jesus Christ (John 14:6). Before Christ men could only conjecture about the Truth since they did not possess it. With Christ as the incarnate divine Logos the eternally complete divine Truth enters into the world. For this reason the Gospel says: 'Truth came by Jesus Christ' (John 1:17).

Just as desire and rage multiply our sins, so self-control and humility erase them.

Believe me, brethren, the more we are now in earnest to keep ourselves free from sin, the more confident shall we then be in His Presence.

Today's great enemy of truth, drawing men to perdition, is delusion.

Let us not put off from day to day, without observing how sin is injuring us.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)