• 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.

Humble yourself, reproach yourself, consider yourself the very last and the very worst of all, condemn no one - and you will receive God's mercy.

The more a man struggles to do good, the more fear grows in him, until it shows him his slightest faults, those which he thought of as nothing while he was still in the darkness of ignorance.

A prayer offered while one has any cause to reproach a fellow man is an impure prayer. There is only one whom the praying person may and must reproach, and that is himself. Without self-reproach, your prayer is as worthless as it is while you are reproaching someone else in your heart. Perhaps you ask: How can one learn this? The answer is: One learns it through prayer.

He who believes in Christ is not judged, for he judges himself, and sets his feet aright to follow the light that goes before him. As a man in deep darkness adapts his step to the candle in his hand, so also he who believes in Christ; that is, he who is set to follow after Christ as the light in the darkness of life.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.

Increasing self-criticism is the sign of increasing humility. Indeed, there is no clearer sign.

A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.

Should you accuse and condemn yourself before God for the sins on your conscience, you will be justified for doing so.

He alone knows himself in the best way who thinks of himself as being nothing.

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

The martyrs will show their torments, the ascetics their good works; but what will I have to show but my apathy and my incessant indulgence?

As for uprooting your passions, begin with self-reproach and with awareness of your own weaknesses; and consider yourself to be deserving of afflictions.

He who smells the smell of one's own foul odor doesn't smell the foul odor of anyone else.

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Who has conquered the body? He who has made the heart contrite. Who then has made the heart contrite? He who has denied himself.

Self-condemnation always brings peace and rest to the heart.

This day the earth became Heaven for us. Not because the stars descended from the heavens to earth, but because the apostles ascended to Heaven by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was now abundantly poured forth, and so the whole world was transformed into heaven; not because human nature was changed, but because there was a change in the direction of the will. For there was found a tax-gatherer, and he was transformed into an evangelist. There was found a persecutor, and he was changed into an apostle. There was found a robber, and he was led into Paradise. There was found a prostitute, and she was made the equal of virgins. There were found wise men, and they were taught the Gospels. Evil fled away, and gentleness took its place. Slavery was put away, and freedom came in its stead. And all debts were forgiven, and the grace of God was conferred. Therefore Heaven became earth.

The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny oneself. To deny oneself means to give up one's bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God.

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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)