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The Brother Lawrence Collection: Practice and Presence of God, Spiritual Maxims, the Life of Brother Lawrence: Practice and Presence of God, Spiritual Maxims, The Life of Brother Lawrence
Included in this collection are two different translation of The Practice and Presence of God, The Spiritual Maxims of Brother Lawrence, and a short Biography of Brother Lawrence. The Practice and Presence of God is one of the most beautiful and touching stories of Christian devotion ever written. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite Brother known for his profound peace and deep relationship with God; many came to seek spiritual guidance from him. The wisdom that he passed on to them, in conversations and in letters, would later become the basis for the book. These two translations will help the reader find a more complete understanding of this wonderful and enduring story. The Spiritual Maxims of Brother Lawrence are beautifully spiritual teachings that can help anyone have a closer relationship with God. And the short biography that closes out the books offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of Brother Lawrence.
103 pages, Paperback
Published February 12, 2008
187 people are currently reading
220 people want to read
About the author
Brother Lawrence
136 books299 followersBrother Lawrence was born Nicolas Herman in Hériménil, near Lunéville in the region of Lorraine, located in modern day eastern France and as a young man went into the army due to his poverty. At the age of 18 he received what he felt was a revelation of the providence and power of God. He went on to fight in the Thirty Years' War and later served as a valet, but within six years joined the Discalced Carmelite Priory in Paris.
Nicolas entered the priory in Paris as a lay brother, not having the education necessary to become a cleric, and took the religious name, "Lawrence of the Resurrection." He spent almost all of the rest of his life within the walls of the priory, working in the kitchen for many of these years and as a repairer of sandals in his later years.
Despite his lowly position in the life of the priory, his character attracted many to him. He had a reputation for experiencing profound peace and visitors came to seek spiritual guidance from him. The wisdom he passed on to them in conversations and in letters would later become the basis for the book The Practice of the Presence of God.
[From Wikipedia]
Nicolas entered the priory in Paris as a lay brother, not having the education necessary to become a cleric, and took the religious name, "Lawrence of the Resurrection." He spent almost all of the rest of his life within the walls of the priory, working in the kitchen for many of these years and as a repairer of sandals in his later years.
Despite his lowly position in the life of the priory, his character attracted many to him. He had a reputation for experiencing profound peace and visitors came to seek spiritual guidance from him. The wisdom he passed on to them in conversations and in letters would later become the basis for the book The Practice of the Presence of God.
[From Wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 9, 2014
This book is as relevant today as it was in the 17th century. The title captures exactly what Brother Lawrence's life mission was because of his love for God. I will refer to this book many times. I personally think anyone who desires a deeper walk with Christ, an increased appetite to know God more through His word and prayer, this book will do it. If you don't want to change to be what Christ wants you to be, don't read this. Top of my list of Christian literature.
March 15, 2021
The book contains conversations had with, and letters written by Nicholas Herman, a lay Brother among the Carmelites at Paris, called Brother Lawrence. It also includes Spiritual Maxims and a brief biography (“Life”) by Joseph de Beaufort.
Brother Lawrence lived from 1611 to 1691.
This material is translated from the French and includes two translations of the Conversations and Letters, entitled Practice and Presence of God. When reading the book, my impression was that Brother Lawrence was saying the same things again and again; it turned out that this was because there were two translations of the Conversations and Letters, which I didn’t realize at first.
Brother Lawrence was a simple man who was converted at the age of eighteen owing to a spiritual experience.
He felt that we should “establish ourselves in a sense of God’s Presence” by continually conversing with Him. The love of God was the end of all his actions. Our only business was “to love and delight ourselves in God”.
The worst that could happen to him was to lose the sense of God. “Perfect resignation to God was a sure way to Heaven.”
We should do “our common business” with no view to pleasing men but purely for the love of God.
Brother Lawrence tells us in the Letters that he has given Himself wholly to God and has renounced everything that was not God.
He has “an habitual, silent and secret conversation of the soul with God”.
He considers himself as the most wretched of men “full of sores and corruption” and asks His forgiveness. We are told that he has many sins, but not what these were.
He recommends that others think of God the most they can.
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.
We must put our whole trust in God.
Our only business in life is to please God and everything else is folly and vanity.
In order to know God, we must often think of Him, and when we come to love Him, we need also think of Him often.
He tells us we should not pray to be delivered from our pains, on the contrary, but pray for the strength and patience to bear them as long as He pleases, “Happy those who suffer with Him.”
Men of the world consider sickness not as a favour from God, and so find only grief and distress in it. “But those who consider sickness as coming from the hand of God ---, find in it great sweetness and sensible consolation.” (This sounds a bit like masochism.)
God is more present with us in sickness than in health. “When pains come from God, He only can cure them. He often sends diseases of the body to cure those of the soul.”
“"Pains and sufferings would be a paradise to me while I should suffer with my God; and the greatest pleasures would be hell to me if I could relish them without Him”.
Faith alone ought to be our support.
Brother Lawrence is always happy and “feels joys so continual and so great that (he) can scarce contain them”.
One’s griefs are proofs of God’s love towards one.
“He is within us: seek Him not elsewhere.”
He asked God for nothing except that we might not offend Him.
The most necessary practice is the presence of God. Secondly, we must converse with Him purely and simply. We must do everything with great care. We must praise God. “Our adoration of God should be done in faith.”
Adoring God in truth is to admit that our nature is just he opposite of His. (This is not what I believe.)
“Brother Lawrence called the practice of the presence of God the easiest and shortest way to attain Christian perfection and to be protected from sin.”
His principal virtue was his faith. He saw nothing but the plan of God in everything that happened to him.
Brother Lawrence appears to have been no less than a saint, totally devoted to God.
But though I myself have had spiritual experiences of divine love, I do not know what it is to love God, whom I do not know as one knows another being.
And it also seems alien to me that God should want us to please Him, and not to offend Him. My more modern understanding is that God is all-encompassing and gives us free will to do whatever we want. He does not judge us, in fact we are He and He is in us (as Lawrence also understands).
I think that while B. Lawrence feels we should love and please God, we in this age do this by trying always to do the right thing, to do things as well as possible, though we may not always succeed in this.
I found the book inspiring but somewhat repetitive and overwhelming as regard to Lawrences’s love, faith and purity. The most informative part was the final “Life of Brother Lawrence”.
Brother Lawrence lived from 1611 to 1691.
This material is translated from the French and includes two translations of the Conversations and Letters, entitled Practice and Presence of God. When reading the book, my impression was that Brother Lawrence was saying the same things again and again; it turned out that this was because there were two translations of the Conversations and Letters, which I didn’t realize at first.
Brother Lawrence was a simple man who was converted at the age of eighteen owing to a spiritual experience.
He felt that we should “establish ourselves in a sense of God’s Presence” by continually conversing with Him. The love of God was the end of all his actions. Our only business was “to love and delight ourselves in God”.
The worst that could happen to him was to lose the sense of God. “Perfect resignation to God was a sure way to Heaven.”
We should do “our common business” with no view to pleasing men but purely for the love of God.
Brother Lawrence tells us in the Letters that he has given Himself wholly to God and has renounced everything that was not God.
He has “an habitual, silent and secret conversation of the soul with God”.
He considers himself as the most wretched of men “full of sores and corruption” and asks His forgiveness. We are told that he has many sins, but not what these were.
He recommends that others think of God the most they can.
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.
We must put our whole trust in God.
Our only business in life is to please God and everything else is folly and vanity.
In order to know God, we must often think of Him, and when we come to love Him, we need also think of Him often.
He tells us we should not pray to be delivered from our pains, on the contrary, but pray for the strength and patience to bear them as long as He pleases, “Happy those who suffer with Him.”
Men of the world consider sickness not as a favour from God, and so find only grief and distress in it. “But those who consider sickness as coming from the hand of God ---, find in it great sweetness and sensible consolation.” (This sounds a bit like masochism.)
God is more present with us in sickness than in health. “When pains come from God, He only can cure them. He often sends diseases of the body to cure those of the soul.”
“"Pains and sufferings would be a paradise to me while I should suffer with my God; and the greatest pleasures would be hell to me if I could relish them without Him”.
Faith alone ought to be our support.
Brother Lawrence is always happy and “feels joys so continual and so great that (he) can scarce contain them”.
One’s griefs are proofs of God’s love towards one.
“He is within us: seek Him not elsewhere.”
He asked God for nothing except that we might not offend Him.
The most necessary practice is the presence of God. Secondly, we must converse with Him purely and simply. We must do everything with great care. We must praise God. “Our adoration of God should be done in faith.”
Adoring God in truth is to admit that our nature is just he opposite of His. (This is not what I believe.)
“Brother Lawrence called the practice of the presence of God the easiest and shortest way to attain Christian perfection and to be protected from sin.”
His principal virtue was his faith. He saw nothing but the plan of God in everything that happened to him.
Brother Lawrence appears to have been no less than a saint, totally devoted to God.
But though I myself have had spiritual experiences of divine love, I do not know what it is to love God, whom I do not know as one knows another being.
And it also seems alien to me that God should want us to please Him, and not to offend Him. My more modern understanding is that God is all-encompassing and gives us free will to do whatever we want. He does not judge us, in fact we are He and He is in us (as Lawrence also understands).
I think that while B. Lawrence feels we should love and please God, we in this age do this by trying always to do the right thing, to do things as well as possible, though we may not always succeed in this.
I found the book inspiring but somewhat repetitive and overwhelming as regard to Lawrences’s love, faith and purity. The most informative part was the final “Life of Brother Lawrence”.
February 5, 2022
How does a poor desert hermit become a name known by Christians 500 years after his death? Because of a life fully submitted to God that was so attractive that people travelled from all over to learn his wisdom, and people still read his writings to learn from him.
There’s no big secret to Brother Lawrence’s life. He “practiced the presence of God” all the time. What does that mean? He thought about God, he prayed to God, he did everything as if God was with him (because God was) all day every day.
What a witness to the Church, the simple practice of grasping what we really believe- that God is Emmanuel.
“In order to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him, we must at first apply to Him with some diligence: but that after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty”
“Our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake, which we commonly do for our own.”
“We must, nevertheless, always work at it, because not to advance in the spiritual life is to go back. But those who have the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward in their sleep”
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delight than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it; yet I do not advise you to do it from that motive. It is not pleasure which we ought to seek in exercise; but let us do it from a principle of love, and because God would have us.”
“We cannot escape the dangers which abound in life without the actual and continual help of God: let us then pray to Him for it continually. How can we pray to Him without being with Him? How can we be with Him but in thinking of him often?And how can we think of Him, but by a holy habit which we should form of it?”
“Make it your study, before taking up any task to look to God, be it only for a moment, as also when you are engaged thereon, and lastly when you have performed the same.”
“Continual contemplation through prayer on spiritual things makes him meek, gentle, patient, whilst strong as iron to battle temptation, giving no hone upon himself, either to pleasure or to sorrow.”
“Believe me, count as lost each day you have not used in loving God”
There’s no big secret to Brother Lawrence’s life. He “practiced the presence of God” all the time. What does that mean? He thought about God, he prayed to God, he did everything as if God was with him (because God was) all day every day.
What a witness to the Church, the simple practice of grasping what we really believe- that God is Emmanuel.
“In order to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him, we must at first apply to Him with some diligence: but that after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty”
“Our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake, which we commonly do for our own.”
“We must, nevertheless, always work at it, because not to advance in the spiritual life is to go back. But those who have the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward in their sleep”
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delight than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it; yet I do not advise you to do it from that motive. It is not pleasure which we ought to seek in exercise; but let us do it from a principle of love, and because God would have us.”
“We cannot escape the dangers which abound in life without the actual and continual help of God: let us then pray to Him for it continually. How can we pray to Him without being with Him? How can we be with Him but in thinking of him often?And how can we think of Him, but by a holy habit which we should form of it?”
“Make it your study, before taking up any task to look to God, be it only for a moment, as also when you are engaged thereon, and lastly when you have performed the same.”
“Continual contemplation through prayer on spiritual things makes him meek, gentle, patient, whilst strong as iron to battle temptation, giving no hone upon himself, either to pleasure or to sorrow.”
“Believe me, count as lost each day you have not used in loving God”
Read
October 21, 2015Brother Lawrence's practical wisdom and simple ways are applicable in our own lives now. I really enjoyed reading this second book by him. I will keep it on my "keeper" shelf as a spiritual reference book for myself and others to use again in the future. I would recommend it to all who are seeking to go deeper on their spiritual quest.
April 16, 2016
Did not find this to be as I expected based on reviews. It was quite meandering with unmeaningful and sometimes contradicting statements. I didn't finish it.
January 4, 2022
My review is for this version of the Practice and Presence of God. I have had the American English version and have often found it inspirational on how to find and abide in God's presence. However, this collection contains two translations of the Practice and Presence of God book. One is in old English and the other is in American English. At first I was reading the old English letters but I couldn't understand them. So I switched to the American English version and did better. Then, I decided to read both simultaneously to see what I could gain from both. It was then that I realized the letters are not presented in the same order. The 5th in old English is the 2nd in American, the 6th is the 3rd and the 7th is the 4th, etc. Why wouldn't the publisher present the letters in the same order?
It's nice to have the spiritual maxims and the story of Brother Lawrence's life, but I found the letters better in my original copy.
It's nice to have the spiritual maxims and the story of Brother Lawrence's life, but I found the letters better in my original copy.
September 12, 2024
Actually, this little book is quite inspirational. My rating reflects the collection's arrangement whereby I wished "The Life of Brother Lawrence" would have come first in the book followed by the "Spiritual Maxims". Also, to me the Version II in the book is the only one needed. My favorite lines: "... we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of GOD, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed (Fourth Conversation)". And from the summary of his life: "Faith made him (Brother Lawrence) regard God as sovereign truth; hope made him think of Him as complete happiness; and love caused him to conceive of Him as the most perfect of all beings, as perfection itself."
May 4, 2023
Very inspiring.
"Let all our employment be to know God: the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him. And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love" Book 1, Fifteenth letter.
Brother Lawrence knew God not only through the reading of His Word but through engaging in a life long conversation with God - truly "praying without ceasing". By reading this book I feel both encouraged to pursuit this life style of devotion and aware that I could only do it by the grace and power of God.
"Let all our employment be to know God: the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him. And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love" Book 1, Fifteenth letter.
Brother Lawrence knew God not only through the reading of His Word but through engaging in a life long conversation with God - truly "praying without ceasing". By reading this book I feel both encouraged to pursuit this life style of devotion and aware that I could only do it by the grace and power of God.
January 26, 2025
This is a reread. First read Brother Lawrence in 1982-1983 when doing post-grad & graduate studies at Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost in Pittsburgh. I was in the graduate program in Formative Spirituality while a pre-novice for the Spiritans. Brother Lawrence reminded me of my Mom's mother who had tried as a postulant at the Carmel in St Louis. Because she had no dowery she was put in the kitchen as a baker. Grandmother Morgan left because she wanted to be a choir sister. I wrote a paper on Brother Lawrence explaining how he worked in the kitchen & as a cobbler in the Carmel.
September 9, 2021
A necessary reminder
Brother Lawrence, in his writings, has rekindled a faith that I had long forgotten. My intent and goal is to solely focus and commune with God, especially during trying and hard times. I'm also grateful for his sharing of prevalent short comings which most people experience that cause us to become anxious and unable to overcome because we perceive them incorrectly. Fantastic book!
Brother Lawrence, in his writings, has rekindled a faith that I had long forgotten. My intent and goal is to solely focus and commune with God, especially during trying and hard times. I'm also grateful for his sharing of prevalent short comings which most people experience that cause us to become anxious and unable to overcome because we perceive them incorrectly. Fantastic book!
October 24, 2018
So blessed by the simplicity of these profound truths
Every time I read this book, I leave blessed and reminded of how simple loving God can be with His help. In a world that longs to over complicate deep truths, I am refreshed by texts that are not unwilling to keep profound things simple.
Every time I read this book, I leave blessed and reminded of how simple loving God can be with His help. In a world that longs to over complicate deep truths, I am refreshed by texts that are not unwilling to keep profound things simple.
March 8, 2023
This book is a timeless practice of The a presence of God. Originally written in the 17th century by Brother Lawrence and has unique perspectives for modern times. A quick read with lots of perspective to think about today.
April 26, 2021
Truth in its simplest form.
I cannot do the wisdom in this book justice. Read it and let the Lord speak to you through it.
I cannot do the wisdom in this book justice. Read it and let the Lord speak to you through it.
February 8, 2022
Wonderful
August 17, 2022
Truly blessed by this book. Very practical on how Brother Lawrence practice ‘present of God’ continually.
August 19, 2025
I’m a big fan of books where the author just makes the same point in every chapter and knows he’s being repetitive. Brother Lawrence’s point being: practice the presence of God.
June 27, 2022
An inspirational guide to practicing the presence of God. The edition i read was a critical edition published by ICS. I thought I would be especially interested in the Fenelon/Bousset controversy regarding Quietism, but in the end found it interested me very little. I doubt it would have interested Brother Lawrence either 😉
January 15, 2009
timeless
June 11, 2015
The message itself is so good. However it became so redundant that it became difficult to finish.
February 4, 2022
Still one of my top 10 greatest spiritual books of all time. Not sure how many times I’ve read this one already…
January 25, 2011
This is an excellent book that I intend to read over and over again. It is truly inspirational.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews