• 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.

Blessed are those who, from love of God, have girded their loins with unquestioning simplicity for this sea of suffering, and who do not turn back.

Prayer requires the inseparable presence and cooperation of the attention. With attention, prayer becomes the inalienable property of the person praying; in the absence of attention, it is extraneous to the person praying. With attention, it bears abundant fruit; without attention, it produces thorns and thistles. The fruit of prayer consists in illumination of mind and compunction of heart; in the quickening of the soul with the life of the Spirit. Thorns and thistles are a sign of deadness of soul and pharisaical self-esteem which springs from the hardening of a heart which is contented and elated by the quantity of the prayers and the time spent in reciting those prayers.

A servant of the Lord is he who in body stands before men, but in mind knocks at Heaven with prayer.

Do not shun poverty and affliction, the fuel that gives wings to prayer.

We must always pray, so that the Lord will tell us what we must do, and the Lord will not leave us in confusion.

Let us then not lose heart, nor be slothful or timid in prayer. Even if we have been brought down to the depths of evil, prayer can speedily draw us back.

Whether you pray with brethren or alone, try to pray not simply as a routine, but with conscious awareness of your prayer. Conscious awareness of prayer is concentration accompanied by reverence, compunction and distress of soul as it confesses its sin with inward sorrow.

It is natural for the poor man to beg, and it is natural for man made poor by the fall into sin to pray.

Pray firstly to be purified of passions, secondly to be freed from ignorance and forgetfulness, and thirdly to be delivered from all temptation and forsaking.

May simplicity go before you everywhere; especially be simple in your faith, hope, and love, for God is an Essence of Simplicity, a Unity that is worshipped everlastingly, and our soul is simple. The simplicity of our soul is hindered by our flesh, when we please it.

'If our prayer is not in harmony with our deeds, we labor in vain,' Abba Moses often told the young monks. 'How are we to accomplish such harmony?' they asked him one day. 'When we make that which we seek fitting to our prayer,' explained the saint. 'Only then can the soul be reconciled with its Creator and its prayer be acceptable, when it sets aside all of its own evil intentions.'

It is natural for the poor man to beg, and it is natural for man made poor by the fall into sin to pray.

Our prayer reflects our attitude towards God. He who is careless of salvation has a different attitude toward God from him who has abandoned sin and is zealous for virtue but has not yet entered within himself and works for the Lord only outwardly. Finally, he who has entered within and carries the Lord within himself, standing before Him, has yet another attitude. The first man is negligent in prayer, just as he is negligent in life, and he prays in church and at home merely according to the established custom, without attention or feeling. The second man reads many prayers and goes often to church, trying at the same time to keep his attention from wandering and to experience feelings in accordance with the prayers which are read, although he is seldom successful. The third man, wholly concentrated within, stands with his mind before God, and prays to Him in his heart without distraction, without long verbal prayers, even when standing for a long time at prayer in his home or in church.... Every prayer must come from the heart and any other prayer is no prayer at all. Prayer-book prayers, your own prayers and very short prayers, all must issue forth from the heart to God, seen before you.

Ask the angels and the saints to intercede for you, just as you'd ask people who are alive. Stand face to face with them, in the belief that they are also standing face to face with you.

If someone should ask: how am I to pray?, the answer is very simple: fear God. Experience of the fear of God arouses attention and consciousness in the heart and forces it to stand with devotion before God.

A servant of the Lord is he who in body stands before men, but in mind knocks at Heaven with prayer.

Prayer is a branch (of a tree) of meekness, and freedom from anger. Prayer is an expression of joy and thankfulness. Prayer is a remedy against sorrow and depression.

Do not be always wanting everything to turn out as you think it should, but rather as God pleases; then you will be undisturbed and thankful in your prayer.

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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)