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Quotes

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

Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.

Blessed stillness gives birth to blessed children: self-control, love and pure prayer.

A person lighting a fire first has a small piece of tinder. This represents the word of the brother who has upset him. This little fire is very feeble. What significance has the word of your brother? If you put up with it you blow out the small fire, but if you begin to think to yourself, 'Why did he say that to me? I myself can answer him. If he did not want to hurt me, he wouldn't have said that and believe me, I can upset him too.' In this case, you add small pieces of wood to the fire and some other fuel like the person that lights a fire and you produce smoke which is agitation. Agitation is the movement and coming together of thoughts which stimulate the heart and make it audacious. Audacity is the taking of retribution against the person that has upset you, and this becomes insolence as Abba Mark said, 'Evil accepted in thought makes the heart audacious, but when this is revoked through prayer and hope, it makes it contrite.'

When tested by some trial you should try to find out not why or through whom it came, but only how to endure it gratefully, without distress or rancor.

Self-knowledge is a true idea of one's spiritual growth, and an unbroken remembrance of one's slightest sins.

The more a man's tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by verbosity.

Knowing the exact nature of everything, God permits each person to be tested according to his strength. As St. Paul puts it: 'God is to be trusted not to let you be tried beyond your strength, but with the trial He will provide a way out, so that you are able to bear it' (1 Cor. 10:13).

The iniquitous mouth is stopped during prayer, for the condemnation of the conscience deprives a man of his boldness.

Nothing is more unsettling than talkativeness and more pernicious than an unbridled tongue, disruptive as it is of the soul’s proper state. For the soul’s chatter destroys what we build each day and scatters what we have laboriously gathered together.

Love of God proceeds from conversing with him; this conversation of prayer comes about through stillness, and stillness comes with the stripping away of the self.

The person who is unaffected by the things of this world loves stillness; and he who loves no human thing loves all men.

A single word made the thief pure and holy, despite all his previous crimes, and brought him into paradise (cf. Luke 23:42-43). A single ill-advised word prevented Moses from entering the promised land (cf. Num. 20:12). We should not suppose, then, that garrulity is only a minor disease. Lovers of slander and gossip shut themselves out of the kingdom of heaven.

One who is capable of seeing himself is better than one who has been made worthy to see angels.

He who has become aware of his sins has controlled his tongue, but a talkative person has not yet come to know himself as he should.

In general, loquacity opens the doors of the soul, and the devout warmth of the heart at once escapes. Empty talk does the same, but even more so… Empty talk is the door to criticism and slander, the spreader of false rumors and opinions, the sower of discord and strife. It stifles the taste for mental work and almost always serves as a cover for the absence of sound knowledge…

Stillness mortifies the outward senses and resurrects the inward movements, whereas agitation does the opposite, that is, it resurrects the outward senses and deadens the inward movements.

He who guards his lips preserves his soul; but he who is bold with his lips dishonors himself.

But let us speak that which is good, to the edification of faith. That is, to speak only what will help to build up our neighbor in virtue; nothing more than that.

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

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