Some time ago, I posted a hauntingly beatiful meditation on death that I heard shared from Father John Behr. In leafing thru Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament For A Son, I found the same words credited to John of Damascus. The meditation comes at the beginig of a requiem that Wolterstorff assembled with his wife for their son Eric, after his death at a young age.

Here, again, are the sobering words addressed toward Death:

Truly terrible is the mystery of death.
I lament at the sight of the beauthy
created for us in the image of God
which lies now in the grave
without shape, without glory, without consideration.
What is this mystery that surrounds us?
Why are delivered up to decay?
Why are we bound to death?  

— John of Damascus