Brother Lawrence

Brother Lawrence was born Nicolas Herman in Hériménil, near Lunéville in Lorraine, France, in about 1614. He came from a peasant family and served as a soldier in the Thirty Years' War, where he was wounded. According to his own account, his religious conversion came at the age of eighteen when, looking at a bare tree in winter, he reflected that it would soon bear leaves and fruit again. After the war he worked for a time as a footman, and in 1640 he joined the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Paris as a lay brother, taking the name Lawrence of the Resurrection. For many years he worked in the monastery kitchen and later repaired sandals, teaching that ordinary tasks could be done for the love of God and that one could speak with God constantly in everyday work. After his death in 1691, Joseph de Beaufort, a priest who had interviewed him, published his conversations and letters as The Practice of the Presence of God.

Brother Lawrence is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: French Catholic lay brother of the Discalced Carmelite order in Paris. Source: Wikipedia