Take Joy!
by Fra Giovanni Giocondo
I salute you!
There is nothing I can give you which you have not;
but there is much that, while I cannot give, 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 instant.
Take peace!
The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.
And so at this Christmastime I greet you,
with the prayer that for you, now and forever,
the day breaks and the shadows flee away.
