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  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

He who chooses maltreatment and dishonor for the sake of truth is walking on the apostolic path; he has taken up the cross and is bound in chains (cf. Mt 16:24). But when he tries to concentrate his attention on the heart without accepting these two, his intellect wanders from the path and he falls into the temptations and snares of the devil.

The man who has come to loathe sin has mounted the first rung of the heavenly ladder.

Sin disfigures a man, while grace brings beauty.

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.

Every man who has committed sin, has stopped up the senses of his soul with the mud of pleasure.

No man, wise in his own opinion, because he has studied all the sciences and is learned in external wisdom, will ever penetrate God's mysteries or see them unless he first humbles himself and becomes foolish in his heart, repudiating his self-opinion together with his acquirements of learning. For a man who acts thus and follows with undaunted faith those who are wise in things Divine, is guided by them and with them enters into the city of the living God, and, taught and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, sees and knows things which no one else can see or know. Thus he becomes taught of God.

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.

Do not hate the sinner. Become a proclaimer of God's grace, seeing that God provides for you even though you are unworthy.

True wisdom is gazing at God. Gazing at God is silence of the thoughts. Stillness of mind is tranquility which comes from discernment.

All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.

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.

The only thing God requires of us is that we do not sin. But this is achieved, not by acting according to the law, but by carefully guarding the divine image in us and our supernal dignity. When we thus live in our natural state, wearing the resplendent robe of the Spirit, we dwell in God and God dwells in us. Then we are called gods by adoption and sons of God, sealed by the light of the knowledge of 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.

Prove your love and zeal for wisdom in actual deeds.

'And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.' For we have many sins. For we offend both in word and in thought, and very many things we do worthy of condemnation; and 'if we say that we have no sin' (I Jn. 1:8), we lie, as John says...The offenses committed against us are slight and trivial, and easily settled; but those which we have committed against God are great, and need such mercy as His only is. Take heed, therefore, lest for the slight and trivial sins against you, you shut out for yourself forgiveness from God for your very grievous sins.

If you feel no pang in committing minor offences you will through them fall into major transgressions.

Do not stir up a memory that will cover your prayer with mud, do not root around in the soil of your old sins.

Believe me, brethren, the more we are now in earnest to keep ourselves free from sin, the more confident shall we then be in His Presence.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)