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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: see it before the ending of my life. I have seen my desire: I
have seen thee severed from the world and the concerns of the
world, united to Christ, thy mind never wavering, and come to the
measure of the perfection of his fulness. Now therefore as the
time of my departure is at the door, and seeing that my desire,
that hath grown with my growth and aged with my years, to be for
ever with Christ, is even now being fulfilled, thou must bury my
body in the earth and restore dust to dust, but thyself abide for
the time to come in this place, holding fast to thy spiritual
life, and making remembrance of me, poor as I am. For I fear
lest perchance the darksome army of fiends may stand in the way
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