So, for to-morrow and its needs
I do not pray;
But keep me. guide me, love me. Lord,
Just for to-day.
— Sister Xavier.
One Little Secret of a Happy Life
One secret of a sweet and happy Christian life is learning to live by the day. It is the long stretches that tire us. We think of life as a whole, running on for us. We can not carry this load until we are threescore and ten. We can not fight this battle continually for half a century. But really there are no long stretches. Life does not come to us all at one time; it comes only a day at a time. Even to-morrow is never ours until it becomes to-day. and we have nothing whatever to do with it but to pass down to it a fair and good inheritance in to-day's work well done, and to-day's life well lived.
It is a blessed secret this, of living by the day. Any one can carry his burden, however heavy, till nightfall. Any one can do his work, however hard, for one day. Any one can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, until the sun goes down. And this is all life ever means to us — just one little day. "Do to-day's duty; fight to-day's temptations, and do not weaken or distract yourself by looking forward to things you can not see, and could not understand if you saw them." God gives us nights to shut down upon our little days. We can not see beyond. Short horizons make life easier and give us one of the blessed secrets of brave, true, holy living.
Jesu Decus Angelicum
O Jesus! Thou the beauty art
Of angel worlds above;
Thy name is music to the heart.
Enchanting it with love.
