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

Even if someone has attained complete chastity, or fasts, or keeps vigil; whether they pray or give banquets for the poor; even if they think of offering gifts, or first fruits, or offering; whether they build churches, or do anything else, without love all those things will be reckoned as nothing by God. For the Lord is not pleased by them.

Let the love of your fellow man rise above the promptings of self love.

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

Pride is the forerunner of every fall.

It is no small struggle to be freed from self-esteem. Such freedom is to be attained by the inner practice of the virtues and by more frequent prayer; and the sign that you have attained it is that you no longer harbor rancor against anybody who abuses or has abused you.

Only with love is a weak person edified.

God seeks nothing else from us men except that we do not sin; this alone. But this is not a work of law; it is rather a careful guarding of the image and dignity from above. In these things, affirmed in our nature and bearing the radiant garment of the Spirit, we shall abide in God and He in us. We shall be called good, and sons of God by adoption, marked in the light of our knowledge of God.

If anyone thinks that he has love but does not have the same love for all, but distinguishes between persons, separating the lowly from the rich, the infirm from the healthy, a sinner from a righteous man, one far off from one near, one who is an enemy from one who loves you, such love is not perfect, but partial. Actual and perfect love consists in considering everyone and loving them equally, both those who love you and those who hate you. Such love, with which mercy is inseparable, is, in brief, a net for all virtues. It embraces and contains all the commandments of God within itself.

The Holy Fathers say, 'Pride goeth before a fall, and humility before grace.' Whereas faintheartedness is the mother of impatience.

Nothing so abets our secret destruction as conceit and self-satisfaction, or so cuts us off from God and provokes our chastisement at the hands of other men as grumbling, or so disposes us to sin as a disorderly life and talkativeness.

Do not measure yourself by the standard of weaker men, but strive rather to apply yourself to the commandment of love. In measuring yourself by the former you fall into the pit of presumption, in striving for the latter you advance to the heights of humility.

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

Know that if your thought leads you to look at how others live, this is a sign of pride.

Until we find love, our labor is in the land of tares, and in the midst of tares we both sow and reap, even if our seed is the seed of righteousness.

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

Each Christian, especially a priest, should follow in example the goodness of the Lord, that everyone should be invited to partake of the Lord's food at your table. The miser is an enemy of the Lord.

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

God loves us more than a father, mother, friend, or any else could love, and even more than we are able to love ourselves.

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

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