Pray with
Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection
1614-1691
Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection was a humble lay brother in the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Paris, where he served first as a cook, and later – owing to gout – as a sandal maker. His peacefulness and simple wisdom attracted others to him and his conversations and letters formed the basis for a book: The Practice of the Presence of God. His simple practice was to attend always to the presence of God within him, and to do everything purely for love of Him.
‘Sometimes I beheld Him in my heart as my Father, as my God: I worshipped Him as often as I could, keeping my mind in His holy Presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him ... without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily. … I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of God. … [At other times,] I consider myself before God, whom I behold as my King’.
‘Spend the remainder of your life only in worshipping God. He requires no great matters of us; a little remembrance of Him from time to time, a little adoration: sometimes to pray for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, and sometimes to thank Him for the favours He has given you…
Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company: the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; He is nearer to us than we are aware of.
… we may make an oratory of our heart, wherein to retire from time to time, to converse with Him in meekness, humility and love.’
‘He found it the shortest way to go straight to Him by a continual exercise of love, and doing all things for His sake…. Our only business was to love and delight ourselves in God’ (Practice of the Presence of God).