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  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

'And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.' For we have many sins. For we offend both in word and in thought, and very many things we do worthy of condemnation; and 'if we say that we have no sin' (I Jn. 1:8), we lie, as John says...The offenses committed against us are slight and trivial, and easily settled; but those which we have committed against God are great, and need such mercy as His only is. Take heed, therefore, lest for the slight and trivial sins against you, you shut out for yourself forgiveness from God for your very grievous sins.

When a passion arises, when it is young and feeble, cut it off, lest it stiffen and cause you a great deal of trouble. It is one thing to pluck out a small weed and quite another thing to uproot a great tree.

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...

A man who has embraced poverty offers up prayer that is pure, while a man who loves possessions prays to material images.

Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passions.

It is not safe to swim in one's clothes, nor should a slave of passion touch theology.

If the passions strike you from time to time, this should not distress you. We must continue the 'unseen warfare' all our lives. The battle itself is not a problem; there is trouble only if we become weak in it. If this does not happen, our spiritual life is in good order. The peace that is with you in battle bears witness to this. But we must beware that we do not feel a different kind of peace, the kind one feels when there is no battle. This kind of peace is dangerous. It indicates that the enemy has done away with open battle and wants to build an invisible and clever snare for us! In cases like this one must intensify one's usual vigilance and sobriety! Do not weaken in any way!

Free me from my wanton habits before the end overtakes me...

If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions, you cannot reap God's mercy.

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.

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

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.

So long as the soul is sick with passions, its senses have no perception of the spiritual; and the soul does not even know how to desire it, but desires it only from hearsay and writings. The power of the soul is cured of these diseases by the hidden practice of commandments, with sharing in Christ's passion.

One must clean the royal house from every impurity and adorn it with every beauty, then the king may enter into it. In a similar way one must cleanse the earth of the heart and uproot the weeds of sin and the passionate deeds and soften it with sorrows and the narrow way of life, sow in it the seed of virtue, water it with lamentation and tears, and only then does the fruit of dispassion and eternal life grow. For the Holy Spirit does not dwell in a man until he has been cleansed from passions of the soul and body. Only one thing may remain within a man, either the Holy Spirit or the passions. Where the Holy Spirit is, there the passions do not come near, and where the passions are, there the Holy Spirit does not dwell, but rather the evil one.

For never is a man forced into sin by another’s fault, unless he have, stowed away in his heart, matter for evil deeds. Nor is a man to be held a victim of sudden deception if at the sight of a woman’s beauty he fall into an abyss of vile lust. Rather is it that diseases of soul, deeply hidden away and lost to view, come then to the surface on the occasion of the sight.

The only thing God requires of us is that we do not sin. But this is achieved, not by acting according to the law, but by carefully guarding the divine image in us and our supernal dignity. When we thus live in our natural state, wearing the resplendent robe of the Spirit, we dwell in God and God dwells in us. Then we are called gods by adoption and sons of God, sealed by the light of the knowledge of God.

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

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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)