The Practice of the Presence of God

Summary

The Practice of the Presence of God gathers four conversations with, and fifteen letters by, Brother Lawrence, a lay brother of the Discalced Carmelites in Paris who spent his days in the friary kitchen. The conversations were written down by a visitor, traditionally identified as Joseph de Beaufort, who first met him on 3 August 1666. In the First Conversation Lawrence explains that at eighteen, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves in winter and thinking how spring would renew it, he received a lasting sense of God's providence and power. He had been a footman, a great awkward fellow who broke everything, and entered the monastery expecting to be punished for his clumsiness, but found only contentment. He urges his visitor to keep a sense of God's presence by continual conversation with him and to feed the soul with high thoughts of God. In the Second Conversation he describes four years in which he was troubled by the belief that he would be damned, until he resolved to love God whatever became of him and found peace. He tells of being sent to Burgundy to buy wine, though lame, rolling himself over the casks in the boat, and of fifteen years in a kitchen he naturally disliked, made easy by doing everything for the love of God. He holds that set times of prayer should not differ from other times, that wandering thoughts should be quietly dismissed, and that mortifications without love are useless. The Third and Fourth Conversations add that trust honours God, that little things done for love matter more than great works, and that faith, hope and charity are the whole substance of religion; the editor adds an account of how he worked, prayed before and after each task, and kept his calm amid the clatter of the kitchen. The fifteen letters, written to unnamed religious and lay correspondents, repeat the method in plain terms: a little lifting up of the heart, an oratory made in the heart, prayer like a beggar at a rich man's gate, patience with the mind's roving, and friendship with God. The last letters, written as he neared eighty, counsel a sick correspondent to accept suffering as coming from God's hand and to seek strength rather than relief; a note records that he took to his bed two days after the last letter and died within the week, in February 1691. Beaufort published the letters and maxims in 1692 and the conversations, with a life, soon after. The library text is the anonymous English translation issued by the Fleming H. Revell Company of New York, Chicago and Toronto.

Top Lessons

• Holiness in ordinary work

  Lawrence spent fifteen years in a kitchen he naturally disliked and found it easy once he did everything for the love of God. He insists that sanctification does not depend on changing our work but on doing for God what we usually do for ourselves. A pot, a straw picked up, or a wine-buying trip can become prayer.

• Prayer as conversation, not only set times

  Lawrence says set times of prayer should not differ from other times, because he talks with God all day in simple words. He recommends a little lifting up of the heart, even on a march with a sword in hand, and an oratory made in the heart. Prayer becomes a habit of friendship rather than a special performance.

• Patience with a wandering mind

  In the Eighth Letter Lawrence admits the mind is extremely roving and says that worrying about distractions only distracts us further. The will must bring the mind back calmly, and the best help is to keep the mind near God at other times too. He treats failure as an ordinary step, not a disaster.

• Trust in suffering

  Writing to a sick friend near the end of his life, Lawrence prays not for her relief but for strength to bear her pains. He believes God is sometimes nearer in sickness than in health and calls him the physician of soul and body. He speaks from his own experience of being near death and finding peace.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The book is devotional, not medical, but it touches several topics of interest to a psychiatric reader. Lawrence describes four years of persistent fear that he would be damned, which no one could argue him out of, ended not by reasoning but by a resolve to love God whatever his fate; in the language of his tradition this is spiritual trial or scruples, and any modern reading as anxiety or obsessional doubt is interpretive. His counsel on wandering thoughts, to recall the mind gently without disquiet because agitation only scatters it further, is a period account of attention training that modern readers sometimes compare with contemplative and mindfulness practices. He was lame from a war wound and worked in pain, rolling over wine casks in a boat. The last letters to a long-ill correspondent reflect a seventeenth-century Catholic view of sickness as God's visitation: he calls God the physician of soul and body, advises that confidence placed in physic rather than God may delay recovery, and in the Thirteenth Letter suggests leaving off human remedies after they have failed. These are spiritual counsels of their time, not medical teaching. The final note records his own death within a week of the last letter.

• Second Conversation

  Four years of conviction that he would be damned, resolved by choosing to love God whatever became of him.

• Second Conversation

  Sent to buy wine though lame, he moves about the boat by rolling over the casks.

• Eighth Letter

  Counsel on wandering thoughts in prayer and calmly recalling the mind by the will.

• Eleventh to Thirteenth Letters

  Advice to a long-ill correspondent on sickness, physic, and God as physician of body and soul.

• Fourteenth and Fifteenth Letters, final note

  Lawrence, near eighty and often near death, anticipates seeing God; he takes to his bed two days after the last letter.