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

When beset by temptations pray for courage and strength to remain firm. Remember: there is an eternity!

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.

The principle characteristic of this present, temporal life is temptation.

Each Christian, especially a priest, should follow in example the goodness of the Lord, that everyone should be invited to partake of the Lord's food at your table. The miser is an enemy of the Lord.

Temptations are sent for improvement when God delivers his righteous ones to various temptations, humiliating them for some slight and unimportant offense, or to increase their purity, in order that every uncleanliness of thought, or... dross which He sees they have harbored in secret, may be burnt away in this present life, and that so He may bring them, as it were pure gold, to the future judgment...

Temptations are permitted so that we may learn what is in our heart.

Let all of us who wish to attract the Lord to ourselves draw near to Him as disciples to the Master, simply, without hypocrisy, without duplicity or guile, not out of idle curiosity. He Himself is simple and not composite, and He wants souls that come to Him to be simple and guileless. For you will surely never see simplicity bereft of humility.

Christ allows temptations so that we may be purified of our predispositions.

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

Walk before God in simplicity, and not in subtleties of the mind. Simplicity brings faith; but subtle and intricate speculations bring conceit; and conceit brings withdrawal from God.

Remember that a good action is always either preceded or followed by temptations. God permits this so that the virtue, exercised in that particular action, may be confirmed, consolidated, steeled.

Blessed are those who, from love of God, have girded their loins with unquestioning simplicity for this sea of suffering, and who do not turn back.

Waves of temptation of every sort were aimed at the righteous ones, but they did not grow faint. Glory did not make them haughty, nor did abusive treatment cause them to be despondent. They were always the same; never did the fragrance of their virtues falter.

May simplicity go before you everywhere; especially be simple in your faith, hope, and love, for God is an Essence of Simplicity, a Unity that is worshipped everlastingly, and our soul is simple. The simplicity of our soul is hindered by our flesh, when we please it.

If a man tries to overcome temptations without prayer and patient endurance, he will become more entangled in them instead of driving them away.

Live simply and God will not leave you...

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

Do not seek to find the cause of temptations or whence they come; only pray to suffer them with gratitude.

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5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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