My family and I will be away, and I will not be posting here, until after Christmas Day. My warmest wishes to you and those dear to you, that the joy of the season be yours now and for all the year to come.

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.

Take 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.

— Fra Giovanni, 1513 AD