Nicholas Herman, who took the religious name Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, lived an outwardly small life. He was a French peasant, served briefly as a soldier in the Thirty Years’ War, was wounded and discharged, worked for a time as a footman, and at around forty entered the Discalced Carmelite priory in Paris as a lay brother. He spent the rest of his life there, mostly in the kitchen and later as a sandal maker, doing the unglamorous manual work of the community.
What survived him is a slim volume composed by his prior Joseph de Beaufort after his death: a few pages of recollected conversations, a handful of letters, a couple of short maxims. Together they are titled The Practice of the Presence of God. The book has remained in continuous print for more than three centuries because of the simplicity and depth of what it teaches.
Brother Lawrence reduced the contemplative life to one practice. Whatever he was doing, he tried to keep his attention turned simply and lovingly toward God. The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament. The kitchen and the chapel had become one continuous practice.
His teaching has been recognised across the Christian tradition and beyond as one of the most accessible expressions of contemplative life. It cuts past technique. It is not a method requiring training, postures, or specific times. It is the moment-by-moment turning of the heart toward what is always already present.
