Take It

“There is nothing I can give you this season which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.  No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.  Take heaven!  No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.  Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.  Take joy!  And so, at this time, I greet you.  Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with a prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee.”

- Fra Giovanni Giocondo,  Franciscan friar, Christmas Eve, 1513