35 pages • 1-hour read
The Practice of the Presence of God
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Themes
The Importance of Constant Prayer in Daily Life
For Brother Lawrence, awareness of God’s presence is both achieved and expressed through the habit of constant prayer. He characterizes this practice in various ways, such as: “finding constant pleasure in His divine company” and “speaking humbly and lovingly with Him in all seasons, at every moment, without limiting the conversation in any way” (60). He maintained that prayer time should not be distinguished from non-prayer time; prayer can and should happen anytime, including while people are working. In this way, all of life becomes sanctified, an important goal for Lawrence and Catholic Reformation spirituality. Nor does prayer have to be prescribed or memorized; Lawrence encourages spontaneous prayers from the heart as the best kind because they express sincere faith.
Considered as a process, prayer for Lawrence begins with an awareness of God’s greatness and goodness, leading to love for Him. This love then gives rise to faith, trust, and surrender to God’s will, expressed in a desire to be in communion with Him always. The habit of constant prayer leads to strengthened faith, hope, and love—the “theological virtues” that are the sign of holiness. The dominant factor in the spiritual life for Lawrence is love rather than fear, guilt, or a desire to receive benefits from God. Christians should desire to be with God out of sheer love for Him and as a response to His love for humanity.
Lawrence does not emphasize process or method in achieving communion with God. His approach to prayer is minimalist, consisting “totally and simply of God’s presence” and of “resting in God, having lost its awareness of everything but love of Him” (24). So powerful and all-encompassing is this feeling of peace that it bleeds into one’s non-prayer life as well, creating an atmosphere of “continual joy” (24). The habit of constant prayer is self-renewing: The easier and more natural it is, the more people desire to do it, and the more benefits it brings. The end result is that one’s whole life consists in “continual acts of love, praise, confidence, [and] thanksgiving” (71) that bring about a peaceful contentment with life and a joyful anticipation of eternity.
Spiritual Humility and the Rejection of Ego
The Practice of the Presence of God commends Brother Lawrence for his personal humility, which was manifest in his daily life at the monastery. Humility also forms an important theme in Lawrence’s spirituality. Although no particular part of the book deals with humility as a separate topic, the idea pervades the whole book and is integral to the practice Lawrence describes.
For Lawrence, humility begins with the insight that humans are totally dependent on God for everything in life. As Lawrence puts it, “We begin to need His help with every little thing and at every moment, because without it we can do nothing” (59). This feeling of helplessness instills love, respect, and desire to be with God through constant prayer and contemplation.
Humility is necessary for the motivation to seek God in the first place. One should love God for His own sake, not for any benefit or reward He might give. This attitude expresses one’s proper “creaturely” place before God, unable to understand God’s essence but grateful for His love. All actions, according to Lawrence, should be done for God rather than for oneself. This selflessness is necessary in the quest to achieve an awareness of God’s presence and, hence, spiritual peace and happiness. It is implied that by not first seeking for personal gain, people eventually find their true fulfillment. This attitude is consistent with Lawrence’s “hidden life” at the monastery; he lived for God’s glory alone, never parading his virtues before others to gain glory for himself.
Humility is also a proper response to humanity’s sinfulness. According to Christian faith, human beings are imperfect and have abused God’s gifts. By coming before God with repentance for their sins, He will forgive them. This knowledge of being forgiven leads to the spiritual peace that Christians desire.
Finally, humility for Lawrence is a mode of living. Lawrence took on menial tasks at the monastery out of humble service to God—e.g., cooking, mending shoes, and going out to buy supplies. According to Beaufort, he worked in these positions for 30 years without complaint. Lawrence preached the need to offer all tasks up to God, thus linking humility to simplicity and service. Lawrence treated all his brothers as equals but especially sought out those who were simple and unsophisticated, because they presented an opportunity for teaching and service. This desire to help others on their spiritual journey, too, showed Lawrence’s humility: He did not seek power or influence but instead sought to share of himself.
Divine Presence as Lived Experience
The presence of God, for Brother Lawrence, is an experience and not simply a religious idea or doctrine. While it would be oversimplifying to say that Brother Lawrence takes an “anti-intellectual” approach to faith and spirituality, he does downplay the role of the intellect in favor of love and devotion in seeking God. Examples are found in Lawrence’s preference for spontaneous utterances over recited prayers, for expressing emotion over logic in one’s spiritual life, and for intuitive rather than studied knowledge of God. For Lawrence, the individual’s relationship with God is a matter of the heart, not the head. Yet, far from being subjective or individualistic, he sees this “way of faith” as foundationally “the mind of the church” (86).
Lawrence was very learned, but in spiritual practice, he believed the intellect could lead people astray just as the passions could. Lawrence highlights the dangers of a misplaced use of the intellect, warning that overthinking can lead people into evil. Here, Lawrence is not claiming that thinking or studying is inherently evil, but that overemphasizing these things can distract people from their ultimate spiritual goal. In contemplative schools of Christianity, thought translates directly into action—thought is action. Negative or ill-intentioned thoughts are just as detrimental as negative or ill-intentioned actions when it comes to achieving and maintaining communion with God. Ultimately, the will—not the mind—should lead one’s spiritual journey, “Otherwise, our spirits may wander” (46). For Lawrence, wandering thoughts are an opportunity to refocus the heart on God, an example of his model of practice as repetition.
Lawrence embodies a more faith-based form of knowledge. He had an aversion to “curious questions that lead nowhere” (84), but he impressed learned authorities with his grasp of difficult religious issues. Though Lawrence’s religious knowledge came from study as well as contemplation, he believed the greatest spiritual rewards were the direct result of one’s love for God rather than the fruit of intellectual study.
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