Many years ago, I found this beautiful letter from Fra Giovanni to a despairing friend on Christmas Eve. Although written in A.D. 1513, the message is just as true and much needed today.
Dear Friend,
I salute you. I am your friend
and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you
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.
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 their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy
or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath
it a living splendour, woven of Love, by wisdom, with Power.
Welcome it, grasp it, and you 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 divine 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 pilgrims together wending though
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,
day breaks and the shadows fly away."