Brother Lawrence

Life

His birth name was Nicolas Herman. He was born in Hériménil, in the Lorraine region of France. Most accounts place his birth around 1614, though some sources give 1605 or 1611. Because he came from a poor family, he received little formal schooling. According to tradition, at about the age of eighteen, while gazing at a tree one winter day, he came to recognize the providence of God (His care for and guidance of the world) and His power; this experience is regarded as the occasion of his conversion. He later served as a soldier in the Thirty Years' War, in which he was wounded, and he is also said to have worked as a footman for a treasury official.

In 1640 he entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery on the Rue de Vaugirard in Paris as a lay brother (a religious who is not a member of the clergy), taking the religious name "Lawrence of the Resurrection." Because he lacked the education required for the priesthood, he remained a lay brother all his life. He spent most of his years in the monastery working in the kitchen, and in his later years, when gout limited him, he was assigned to repairing sandals. He died in Paris on February 12, 1691.

Ministry and Legacy

Lawrence was neither a preacher nor a scholar. He became known for a life lived in continual awareness of God, even in the midst of everyday labor. He reportedly said that for roughly his first ten years in the monastery he suffered great spiritual distress, but that afterward he attained a deep inner peace. His teaching may be summarized as follows: do not separate the time of prayer from the time of work; do even small tasks, such as kitchen chores, out of love for God; and remain conscious of God's nearness (His presence) by speaking to Him continually in short, simple words.

As word of his serene character spread, people began to seek him out for spiritual counsel. After his death, Joseph de Beaufort, a cleric who had known him, collected accounts of their conversations together with Lawrence's letters and published them in 1692 and 1694. This is the work read today as The Practice of the Presence of God. It is therefore less a book written by Lawrence himself than a compilation assembled by an editor. Archbishop François Fénelon had met Lawrence in person and quoted his ideas in his own writings.

Influence on the Korean Church

Although Lawrence was a Roman Catholic religious, The Practice of the Presence of God is also read as a classic of Christian literature in Korean Protestantism. Several Protestant publishers, including Duranno, Onulgwa Vision, and Peniel, have issued translations, while Korean Catholics know the book under a title that uses the Catholic Korean term for God (Haneunim-ui hyeonjon yeonseup). Korean churches more commonly refer to him with a fully Korean rendering of "Brother Lawrence" (Rorenseu hyeongje), and he is sometimes called "the saint of the kitchen." He is frequently cited in discussions of so-called everyday spirituality, the practice of maintaining one's faith in daily life and the workplace, and anecdotes about him appear in sermons, church bulletin columns, and introductions to devotional books.

Assessment

Lawrence is regarded as an exemplar of a simple, practical spirituality that transcends denominational boundaries. Nevertheless, several criticisms and reservations have been raised.

• Fénelon, who held Lawrence in high esteem, became embroiled in the Quietist controversy. Quietism was a mystical movement that sought a state of complete passivity before God through the relinquishment of human will and activity; Pope Innocent XI condemned it as heresy in 1687. According to some assessments, because Jeanne Guyon used Lawrence's writings to support her own Quietism, his book attracted little attention when it first appeared.
• Some critics also point out that the sayings and letters Lawrence left behind contain almost no quotations from Scripture or discussion of Christ, and that such Christian elements were supplied by editors and translators.