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

You will pay glorious homage to God if, through virtues, you imprint His likeness on your soul.

A Christian has great difficulty in attaining three things: grief (over sins), tears, and the continual memory of death. Yet these contain all of the other virtues.

Just as one cannot buy education or artistic skills for any price without working at it, so one cannot attain the habit of exercising the virtues without zeal and diligence.

Virtue is not accounted virtue if it is not accompanied by difficulty and labors.

Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (Genesis 41:57, 46:6).

The devout soul, even if it practices all the virtues, ascribes everything to God and nothing to itself.

Blessed is he who preaches virtue by means of his deeds. But if you say something that pertains to virtue, but do the opposite, this will not save you.

If someone is judged worthy to receive the gift of knowledge but allows his heart to be full of bitterness or rancor or aversion to another, it is as if he had been struck in the eye by a thornbush. That is why knowledge is no good without charity.

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

The principle and source of the virtues is a good disposition of the will, that is to say, an aspiration for goodness and beauty. God is the source and ground of all supernal goodness. Thus the principle of goodness and beauty is faith or, rather, it is Christ, the rock of faith, Who is the principle and foundation of all the virtues. On this rock we stand and on this foundation we build every good thing.

The virtues follow one from another in succession, so that the path of virtue does not become grievous and burdensome, and so that by being achieved in order progressively they may be made light; thus the hardships endured for virtue's sake should be cherished by a man as is the good itself.

Rejoice when you perform the virtues, but do not become exalted, lest, arriving at the pier, you suffer a shipwreck.

The foundation of every virtue is the realization of human weakness.

Virtues are connected with suffering.

A greedy appetite for food is terminated by satiety and the pleasure of drinking ends when our thirst is quenched. And so it is with the other things... But the possession of virtue, once it is solidly achieved, cannot be measured by time nor limited by satiety. Rather, to those who are its disciples it always appears as something ever new and fresh.

The body of Christ is active virtues; he who tastes them will be free from passions.

We must with unflagging zeal and care give ourselves to the pursuit of virtue, and constantly occupy ourselves in its practice, lest at any time progress may cease, and regress immediately take its place.... To cease to acquire means to lose, for the will which goes no longer forward will not be far from peril of falling back.

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

Filters
Search By Keyword
Topics (Love, Anger, Confession, etc.)
See more See less
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)