The Practice Of The Presence Of God by Brother Lawrence

Paperback:  The Practice Of The Presence Of God:  The Best Rule Of A Holy Life (2015) is a collection of letters and transcriptions of conversations, compiled by a disciple of Brother Lawrence.

Brother Lawrence was a 17th-century Carmelite monk and head cook in his monastery's kitchens.  He quickly gained an international reputation as a mystic and spiritual counselor.

The Practice Of The Presence Of God records and includes includes 15 short letters and his last words of advice to his friends and disciples, as he suffered from an unnamed illness which would eventually take his life.

The Practice Of The Presence Of God is translated from the French and has been a means of blessing to many souls.  It is as practical today as it was almost four hundred years ago.  It contains very much of that wisdom which only lips the Lord has touched can express, and which only hearts He has made teachable can receive.

May this edition also be blessed by God and redound to the praise of the glory of His grace.

About Brother Lawrence:  One of the most adored books on living in God’s presence comes from an unlikely source - a man who was maimed as a young soldier and later became a footman “who was clumsy and broke everything.”  That is the early life of Nicholas Herman before he became Brother Lawrence.

Herman was born around 1610 in Herimenil, Lorraine, a Duchy of France.  His birth records were destroyed in a fire at his parish church during the Thirty Years War, a war in which he fought as a young soldier.  It was also the war in which he sustained a near-fatal injury that left him quite crippled and in chronic pain for the rest of his life.  Brother Lawrence was educated by a parish priest whose first name was Lawrence and who was greatly admired by the young Nicolas.  He was well read and, from an early age, drawn to a spiritual life of faith and love for God.

At mid-life he entered a newly established monastery in Paris where he became the cook for the community which grew to over one hundred members.  After fifteen years, his duties were shifted to the sandal repair shop but, even then, he often returned to the busy kitchen to help out.  While repairing sandals or working in the kitchen, Brother Lawrence discovered and then followed a pure and uncomplicated way to walk continually in God’s presence.  For some forty years, he lived and walked with God at his side.

It was not until after his death that a few of his letters were collected.  Joseph de Beaufort, representative and counsel to the local archbishop, first published the letters in a small pamphlet.  The following year, in a second publication which he titled, ‘The Practice of the Presence of God’, de Beaufort included, as introductory material, the content of four conversations he had with Brother Lawrence.  Brother Lawrence never advanced beyond being the cook at the Paris monastery.