Brother Lawrence could be surprisingly subtle: the original French has an implied sense of conversation, perhaps even of communion, that is difficult to communicate without taking a few liberties, as in the Donald Attwater translation of the same Maximes passage: Translators John Delaney, Edward Musgrave Blaiklock and Salvatore Sciurba rendered the passage with the same semi-literal interpretation. We would be quite surprised if we knew what the soul sometimes says to God. Robert Edmonson took a straightforward approach in his translation of this Maximes passage: L'on seroit même surpris si l'on sçavoit ce que l'ame dit quelquefois à Dieu. First, from the original 1692 French edition of Maximes spirituelles: "I was struck by the depth of his love for God and his life lived in obedience, humility, and concern for others." This paradox reflects the challenge facing translators, which is best illustrated by comparing the translations of one of the more famous passages. "I had an image of Brother Lawrence as a jolly monk who took pleasure in cleaning pots and cooking," Edmonson wrote. "When I was exposed to his thoughts for the first time," wrote Henri Nouwen, "they seemed simple, even somewhat naive and unrealistic." Nouwen added that the more he reflected on Brother Lawrence's advice, he became aware that it "is not just a nice idea for a seventeenth-century monk but a most important challenge to our present-day life situation." Translator Robert J. Translators and readers have been struck by Brother Lawrence's seeming simplicity. The labourer is as valuable to God as the priest.
That he was pleased when he could take up a straw from the ground for the love of GOD, seeking Him only, and nothing else, not even His gifts." "That 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." Lawrence pleads that all work is valuable to God and one needs not accomplish great things to please Him. "That he had always been governed by love, without selfish views and that having resolved to make the love of GOD the end of all his actions, he had found reasons to be well satisfied with his method. A summary of his approach can be gleaned from the following passages. The text attempts to explain Lawrence's method of acquiring the presence of God. During his time as a friar he was much preoccupied with the cultivating a keen sensitivity to the presence of God in everyday life. He spent the rest of his life with this order, dying on 12 February 1691. The first conversation in the book recounts Brother Lawrence's conversion to a deeper commitment to his Christian faith at 18 years old: ".in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time, the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of God, which has never since been effaced from his soul." Īt the age of 24, Brother Lawrence joined the Order of Discalced Carmelites in Paris, taking the religious name " Lawrence of the Resurrection". The basic theme of the book is the development of an awareness of the presence of God. The compilation includes letters, as well as records of his conversations kept by Brother Lawrence's interlocutors. The Practice of the Presence of God is a book of collected teachings of Brother Lawrence (born Nicolas Herman), a 17th-century Carmelite friar, compiled by Father Joseph de Beaufort. "The Practice of the Presence of God" is also the title of a section of Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living The Practice of the Presence of God Author
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