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Quotes

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

Unexpected trials are sent by God to teach us to practice the ascetic life, and they lead us to repentance even when we are reluctant.

The Lord commands all men to repent (Matt. 4:17), so that even the spiritual and those making progress should not neglect this injunction and fail to give attention to the smallest and most subtle errors.

He who is deprived of repentance is deprived of the delight to come. He who is close to all things is far from repentance.

Woe is he who knowingly chooses to sin with the intention to repent when morning comes, for he knows not what the coming day or the night that precedes it will bring.

He who has repented travels towards the Lord.

In words of boastfulness and self-justification there always lie concealed contrariness and pride, from which God turns away. After sinning one ought immediately to 'flee.' But, you will say, where? To the calm haven of heartfelt repentance. Every night before you go to sleep, tell God, the Knower of Hearts, all the sins you have committed in deed, word, and thought, and believe that God receives your heartfelt repentance. At the same time try to render your heart contrite by the memory of sudden death.

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.

A human being who does not endure courageously the unpleasant burdens of temptations, will never produce fruit worthy of the divine wine-press and eternal harvest, not even if one possesses all other virtues. For one is only perfected through zealously enduring both all the voluntary and involuntary afflictions.

Painstaking repentance, mourning cleansed of all impurity, and holy humility in beginners, are as different and distinct from each other as yeast and flour from bread. By open repentance the soul is broken and refined; it is brought to a certain unity, I will even say a commingling with God, by means of the water of genuine mourning. Then, kindled by the fire of the Lord, blessed humility becomes bread and is made firm without the leaven of pride. Therefore, when this holy three-fold cord or, rather, heavenly rainbow, unites into one power and activity, it acquires its own effects and properties. And whatever you name as an indication of one of them, is a token also of another. The first and paramount property of this excellent and admirable trinity is the acceptance of indignity with the greatest pleasure, when the soul receives it with outstretched hands and welcomes it as something that relieves and cauterizes diseases of the soul and great sins. The second property is the loss of all bad temper, and humility as its subsiding. The third and highest degree is a true distrust of one’s good qualities and a constant desire to learn.

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

When one meets with obstacles on the way of salvation, one must humble oneself and ask God's help.

I thank Thee, O Keeper of faithful souls, that Thou hast shown us with Thine Own life an example of endurance in bearing all kinds of crosses. Give me the strength to follow the path of patience and humility in Thy footsteps, Christ my Lord. No matter what sorrow I will come across on this journey, I firmly trust that with Thy help, O Lord, I will overcome all obstacles. I understand now that no one can be freed from sorrows by avoiding them, but rather one should take care to endure them so as to conquer them...

It is vain that some unenlightened people seek the greatest evil for man somewhere else, rather than in sin. Some consider disease to be the greatest evil, others - poverty, and others - death. But neither disease, nor poverty, nor death, nor any other earthly disaster can be such a great evil for us as sin is. These earthly misfortunes do not separate us from God if we are seeking Him sincerely, but, on the contrary, they bring us closer to Him.

He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort which cancels his former sins, but through this effort he makes his peace with God.

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

Constantly bear in mind that, in the eyes of God, a penitent sinner is preferable to a proud man who has not sinned otherwise than his pride…

When it is painful to remember the past, it is better to simply repent of what had been bad, and think no more about it. In order not to despair or be enfeebled by it, 'remember the examples of God's great mercies to great sinners. The main thing: do not condemn, do not envy, know yourself and be with God.'

Sin, to one who loves God, is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle. The true Christian is a warrior fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen enemy to his heavenly homeland.

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

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