Brother Lawrence
Notes and Quotes
Lord of all pots and pans and things, make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates!
Nicholas Herman was born in 1611. Deep poverty led him to join the army for the guarantee of daily food and a small wage. During that time he had a unique spiritual awakening:
“In the deep of winter, Herman looked at a barren tree, stripped of leaves and fruit, waiting silently and patiently for the sure hope of summer abundance. Gazing at the tree, Herman grasped for the first time the extravagance of God’s grace and the unfailing sovereignty of divine providence. Like the tree, he himself was seemingly dead, but God had life waiting for him, and the turn of seasons would bring fullness. At that moment, he said, that leafless tree “first flashed in upon my soul the fact of God,” and a love for God that never after ceased to burn.”
(From Christianity Today Magazine.)
Later he entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Paris as Brother Lawrence, a lay monk.
“Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God’s presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?”
For Brother Lawrence, the issue was not the sacredness or status of the task but the motivation behind it. Together, God and Brother Lawrence cooked meals, ran errands, scrubbed pots.
I have abandoned all particular forms of devotion, all prayer techniques. My only prayer practice is attention. I carry on a habitual, silent, and secret conversation with God that fills me with overwhelming joy.
Lucid up to the last moments, Brother Lawrence died at the age of seventy-seven. His death on February 12, 1691 occurred in relative obscurity, but he lives on in his teachings which were collected by the Abbé Joseph de Beaufort. Many great Christians have found them very helpful. (So have I.)
Good when He gives, supremely good; Nor less when He denies:
Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise.
The book, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, is still for sale today and is available online to read for free.