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

Only the tears of repentance are able to cleanse the soul.

In truth, the moisture in the eyes drains the anger in the heart.

God in His mercy gave us the Holy Scriptures that we might read them, and reading them we might fulfill what is sent by God to man, revealing His Holy Will and teaching us how to live. Consider with what attention and willingness that we ought to read God's letter to us. If an earthly king...wrote to you a letter, would you not read it with great joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful attention. The King of Heaven has sent a letter to you, an earthly and mortal man; yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a treasure. Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Him self is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with Him. God speaks to man, the King of Heaven talks with the corruptible creature, the Lord holds converse with the servant. What can be more pleasant... more instructive?

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.

The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...

Pride is the forerunner of every fall.

Grace always precedes temptation, as if to notify you saying, 'Prepare yourself and lock your doors.'

When you shed floods of tears during prayer, do not exalt yourself for this, as though you were above many others. It is that your prayer has received help from above, so that, having zealously confessed your sins, you may incline the almighty to mercy by your tears.

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

Pride is known by its deeds as a tree is known by its fruits.

God is visiting you when tears come during prayer.

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

As work according to God is called virtue, so unexpected affliction is called a test.

Arrogance cannot bear to see itself scorned and humility held in honor.

Those who mourn and those who are insensitive are not subject to fear, but the cowardly often have become deranged. And this is natural. For the Lord rightly forsakes the proud that the rest of us may learn not to be puffed up.

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

How great the evil of pride is, that it deserves to have as its adversary not an angel or other virtues contrary to it but rather God Himself! For it must be noted that it is never said of those who are caught up in the other vices that the Lord resists them, or that the Lord is set against the gluttonous, or fornicators, or the angry, or the avaricious; this is true of the proud alone. For those vices only turn back upon wrongdoers or seem to be committed against those who have a part in them -- that is, against other human beings. This one, however, of its very nature touches God, and therefore it is specially worthy of having God opposed to it.

What rain is for seeds tears are for those who are afflicted.

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

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