As institutions crumble around us, our constructed selves are stripped away, and we are more and more reduced to the most basic and existential thing: namely our relationship to God. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection’s method for “practicing the presence of God” consisted of keeping up a continuous dialogue with Him in one’s heart.

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a French Carmelite monk of the 17th century, is practically unknown, which is surely what this humble man would have wanted. But The Practice of the Presence of God, the book of spiritual reflections which his friend, Father Joseph de Beaufort, published after the monk’s death in 1692, has endured as a spiritual classic. Blessedly short and written in simple and affecting language, this collection of meditations is a gift to anyone who finds mysticism odd and forbidding. By his own words Brother Lawrence was committed to the “hidden and unknown life,” and the book—consisting partly Fr. Beaufort’s reminiscences of the monk and partly sayings and letters from Lawrence himself—is a hymn to a life lived simply for God, free from distractions and complications.

Count me in the club of persons who often find mysticism daunting. I am one who is involved daily in the intellectual life, immersed in the world of ideas. What Brother Lawrence is after in this book is something at once far simpler and far more difficult. It is pure union or heart, mind, and will with God: to live continually in the presence of God, at every moment of every day. The Practice of the Presence of God is not a complex book. It contains no complicated arguments or reasoning and can be read in one sitting. But reading is one thing, absorbing and putting into practice is another. When I thought to write a few words about Brother Lawrence and his book, I thought I would have an easy time of it, but what the monk is touching upon is in some ways the hardest thing of all. Intellectualism can be a comfortable armor that we don to avoid confronting the essential question of life: how we stand before God.

Reading Brother Lawrence reminds me that we need not only philosophers but also mystics. At first glance, Brother Lawrence’s approach to spirituality might seem anti-intellectual. He even says at one point that “thinking spoils everything and evil often begins with our thoughts.” He extols the intuitive approach to God over that gained through intellectual knowledge. Of course, it’s clear that what Lawrence had in mind here was overthinking, or engaging in the wrong kind of thoughts. Against the tendency to regard the passions as the source of evil, Lawrence reminded us that bad thoughts are just as bad as bad feelings.

To speak personally, the life of the mind is everything to me. As it turns out, Brother Lawrence is also concerned with the life of the mind, but not in the sense of rational method. Like his French contemporary Blaise Pascal, Brother Lawrence saw a wider scope for knowledge than merely rational deduction. Intuitive knowledge is in some ways the ultimate form of knowledge because it relates to its object through love. Like St. Paul, Lawrence had in mind the “renewal of the mind” that is rooted in a relationship with Christ.

Lawrence tells us at one point that “we have to know someone before we can truly love him.” The knowledge implied here is a personal and affective knowledge. We come to know Jesus by participating in the sacraments (especially the Eucharist, the ultimate sign of his Presence), reading God’s Word, and meeting him in prayer. It is a training that will make us ready to greet him when he finally appears.

The spiritual journey of Nicolas Herman—the future Brother Lawrence—began with a vision he had as a young soldier in the Thirty Years’ War.

He told me that it had all happened one winter day, as he was looking at a barren tree. Although the tree’s leaves were indeed gone, he knew that they would soon reappear, followed by blossoms and then fruit. This gave him a profound impression of God’s providence and power, which never left him.

By looking at nature and a natural process like the return of green in the springtime, Brother Lawrence was reminded of God’s grace that brings all of creation to fruition in His good time. The way to cooperate with this process of grace is simply to be present to God at every moment, just as He is present to all of creation at every moment. Our task, as per Jesus’ parable, is to “bring forth fruit with patience.”

A reviewer has commented of this little book that “while it can be read in an hour, mastery of its central concept requires a lifetime.” The book’s core idea can be stated in a single sentence: a life lived constantly in God’s presence is the right kind of life. Very simply said, but how to put it into practice? And what does it mean to “be in God’s presence”?

The Pocket Catholic Dictionary defines “Presence of God” as “The existence of God acting in favor of his creatures.” God is always present to his creation, to be sure, but in human terms we might define the presence of God as our awareness of God’s existence and power as acting upon us. Brother Lawrence expresses the task as “to stay as close as possible to God, doing, saying, and thinking nothing that might displease Him. He [i.e., the pray-er] has no reason for doing this, except to show his gratitude for God’s pure love and because God deserves infinitely more than that anyway.”

Lawrence’s method for “practicing the presence of God” consisted of keeping up a continuous dialogue with God in one’s heart. Many saints have recommended sending up these spiritual darts—“ejaculatory prayers”—to God throughout the day. One can do it even in the midst of secular tasks, as a way of making them sacred. Lawrence prefers this type of praying to rote prayers, which may or may not have the heart fully behind them. Lawrence’s spiritual way is that of simplicity and sincerity. The most eloquent formal prayers, the greatest ascetic sacrifices, and the deepest theological learning are worth nothing unless done out of love for God and desire for his presence.

For Lawrence, everything is to be dedicated to God, even the most mundane duties. “I turn my little omelet in the pan for the love of God,” is one of his best-known maxims. And the old Italian immigrant ethic had it that “you can be an artist sweeping floors.” Some have faulted Lawrence for taking the easy way out of life, and that his claims therefore had little credibility. There are two observations to make here. One, Lawrence had traumatic experiences as a soldier and was even captured as a spy. Taking refuge in a monastery after being wounded in battle, he was undoubtedly seeking healing from trauma. As a soldier he would have known plenty of suffering and anguish. His life was not “soft” by any means, either before or after entering monastic life. Secondly, Lawrence’s point is that we must seek holiness in whatever circumstance God has placed us. Surely it is God’s prerogative to call us where He will, whether to great heroism or quiet and humble duty. Doing humble tasks for the glory of God would become a theme in French spirituality: think of St. Therese of Lisieux a couple of centuries later. Brother Lawrence left his mark.

What he experienced and sought, and imparted in his memoirs, was the habit of openness and wonder, the state of simply being present to God. Brother Lawrence learned the truth of the exhortation “Be still and know that I am God.” By being present to God, who is pure Being, we connect with our own being; our socially constructed selves fall away and reveal our true selves.

There are some who know God only as the great Lawgiver, the Power of the universe who demands worship and obedience. Brother Lawrence’s way lies at the nexus between this transcendent God of power and the imminent God of the Incarnation, who is closer to us than we are ourselves—a closeness that seems to enhance, not detract from, his awesome might.

Brother Lawrence’s vision of the barren tree conveys the essence of Christian hope, that “already and not yet” sense which we might call “imaginative expectation”—in a word, a hopeful anticipation of eternity in which we train ourselves for that ultimate awareness, that being-present, to God and others that will characterize the future life. One message of the barren tree is not to fret because things are not perfect now. Our God is bringing things to perfection; he is making a new world under our very noses. When we pray “thy kingdom come,” we should take to heart the idea that a kingdom is actually taking shape (this is, incidentally, the true meaning of “progress”).

In these hectic and overstimulating times, Brother Lawrence’s way offers calm and singleness of purpose. We might think that the tyranny of distractions is a modern phenomenon, but 17th-century voices like Pascal and Brother Lawrence suggest otherwise. Recall Pascal’s comment about those unable to sit quietly in their rooms. I think we can assume that the career ethos was alive then, too: the drive to do things, improve oneself and the world, and pile up credentials. As an antidote, Lawrence’s meditations remind us of Christ’s statement that his yoke is easy and his burden light. What matters to God is simply our belonging to him; his favor is not based on what we think we “deserve” but on pure love.

A few times in the book Brother Lawrence professes bewilderment at the easeful spiritual path and lack of suffering that he experienced; he seemed to feel that he deserved less. But this is the whole point, is it not? None of us merits God’s mercy; he gives it away freely, as the employer freely rewards the day laborers in the gospel parable.

No matter what life serves up to us, whether joy or suffering, our awareness of God’s presence will ground us and to some degree even make external circumstances irrelevant. Such inner peace is something that no one can take from us. As institutions crumble around us, our constructed selves are stripped away and we are more and more reduced to the most basic and existential thing, namely our relationship to God. This subtraction is, I believe, providential in the sense that God is slowly but surely leading us into the final age, when he will be all in all.

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The featured image is “Gravure de Frère Laurent de la Résurection (1614-1691), from a book published by Fleming Revell Co. in 1900, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.