40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

Brother Lawrence, born Nicolas Herman, was a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris during the seventeenth century. When he entered the monastery at the age of twenty-four, he took the religious name Lawrence of the Resurrection. He spent most of his religious life working in the monastery kitchen, cooking and washing dishes. Father Joseph de Beaufort, a priest who knew Brother Lawrence, compiled a booklet of Brother Lawrence’s letters and stories and maxims and published the book after Brother Lawrence’s death in 1691.

“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and 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 tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”

“We ought not to grow tired 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.”

“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”

You can read or print your own copy of this twenty page booklet by a 17th century French monk.
Text and audio available at Christian Ethereal Library.
Librivox’s audio version of The Practice of the Presence of God.

“In this small book, through letters and conversations, Brother Lawrence simply and beautifully explains how to continually walk with God – not from the head but from the heart.”