• 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.

Pray simply. Do not expect to find in your heart any remarkable gift of prayer. Consider yourself unworthy of it. Then you will find peace. Use the empty cold dryness of your prayer as food for your humility. Repeat constantly: I am not worthy; Lord, I am not worthy! But say it calmly; without agitation.

The enemy of our salvation especially strives to draw our heart and mind away from God when we are about to serve Him, and endeavours to adulterously attach our heart to something irrelevant. Be always, every moment, with God, especially when you pray to Him. If you are inconstant, you will fall away from life, and will cast yourself into sorrow and straitness.

Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.

O man, learn the humility of Christ and the Lord will give you to taste of the sweetness of prayer. And if you would pray cleanly, be humble and temperate, confess yourself thoroughly, and prayer will feel at home in you. Be obedient, submit with a good conscience to those in authority; be content with all things, and your mind will be cleansed of vain thoughts. Remember that the Lord sees you, and be fearful lest you anywise offend your brother, whom neither dispraise nor grieve, even by a look, and the Holy Spirit will love you and will Himself be your help in all things.

The soul of prayer is attentiveness. As the body without a soul is dead, so prayer without attentiveness is dead.

When you pray fervently, watch, for there will be temptations. This happens to everyone.

Whenever our prayer subtly conceals that sharp icicle, our pride, it acts as a poison and can only lead us further away from God.

Go, sell all that belongs to you and give it to the poor and taking up the cross, deny yourself; in this way you will be able to pray without distraction.

It is not always possible to fulfill the usual rules; one must take circumstances into account and try to fulfill what they make possible, as far as one can. The demons themselves are not unmindful of this law. So, being in constant enmity with us, they prevent us from doing what is possible and urge us to do what is impossible.

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

Only the benumbed soul doesn’t pray. Preserve in yourselves the feeling of need, and you will always have stimulation for prayer.

'If you do not feel like praying, you have to force yourself,' the Elder said. 'The Holy Fathers say that prayer with force is higher than prayer unforced. You do not want to, but force yourself. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force.'

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

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.

Pray and sigh, pleading with God Himself to grant you zeal and inclination: for without Him we are good for no task whatsoever.

Whatever you have endured out of love of wisdom will bear fruit for you at the time of prayer.

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