"Take Joy" ~ This morning I was thinking about JOY and one of my favourite quotations came to mind. I first saw this wonderful piece by Fra Giovanni in the the Tasha Tudor Christmas Book Take Joy!
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I was so very touched by the words. I decided to include them in my Christmas cards. A few years later I read the piece again for a children's Christmas concert. Now I would like to share them with you. Though written in 1513 I feel they hold much truth.

Letter Written by Fra Giovanni
Fra Giovanni, 1513

I am your friend and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you which you have not
got, 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 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. There is radiance and
glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see
we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its
gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly,
or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you
will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of
love, by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand that
brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a
sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand
is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an
overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not
content with them as joys. They, too, conceal
diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of
beauty - beneath its covering - that you will find
earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage
you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims
together, wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the
world sends greetings, but with profound esteem
and with the prayer that for you now and forever,
the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.