Hello

Jesus said many remarkable things.  This is just one of them:

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.  Yes Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.” (Matthew 11:25-26; Luke 10:21)

Jesus said it gives his heavenly Father pleasure to hide things from the wise and learned and reveal them to little children.  I believe Brother Lawrence was one of the “little children” Jesus was talking about.  Brother Lawrence was a cook in a monastery in Paris in the 1600s.  He wasn’t an ordained priest.  He wasn’t highly educated.  He was a cook.  But he really understood what it means to obey the first and greatest commandment, that we should love our heavenly Father.  His love for our Father was so strong, so real, that others in the monastery took note of the things that Brother Lawrence said and, eventually, his thoughts were collected into a book, “The Practice of the Presence of God”, which is still in print today.

Here are some of his thoughts:

“Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God’s presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?”

 

“Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do…  We can do little things for God.  I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him.”

 

“It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.”

 

“We ought not to be weary 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.”

 

“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 before the Blessed Sacrament.”

 

“it is not necessary for being with God to be always at church.  We may make an oratory of our heart, wherein to retire from time to time, to converse with Him in meekness, humility and love.”

 

“many do not advance in the Christian progress because they stick in penances and particular exercises while they neglect the love of God – which is the end.”

 

“the greater perfection a soul aspires after, the more dependent it is upon divine grace.”

 

“Sometimes I consider myself there, as a stone before a sculptor, whereof he is to make a statue; presenting myself thus before God, I desire Him to make His perfect image in my soul.”

 

“We ought, once for all, heartily put our whole trust in God, and make a total surrender of ourselves to Him, secure that He would not deceive us.”

 

(In prayer) “I shall never do otherwise (than fail) if you leave me to myself; it is you must hinder my failing and mend what is amiss.”

 

“If I do not fail, then I give God thanks, acknowledging that (not failing) comes from him.”

 

“We ought to make a great difference between the acts of understanding and those of the will.  The first are of little value and the others all.  Our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God”

 

“The whole substance of religion is faith, hope and love.  All things are possible for him who has faith, they are less difficult for him who hopes, they are easy for him who loves and still more easy for him who perseveres in the practice of all three.”

 

“I walk before God simply, in faith, with humility and with love; and I apply myself diligently to do nothing and think nothing which may displease Him.  I hope that when I have done what I can, He will do with me what He pleases.”

 

“I consider myself as the most wretched of men, full of sores and corruption, and who has committed all sorts of crimes against his King.  Touched with a sensible regret I confess to him all my wickedness, I ask his forgiveness, I abandon myself in his hands, that he may do what he pleases with me.  This King, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastising me, embraces me with love, makes me eat at his table, serves me with his own hands, gives me the key of his treasures; He converses and delights himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all respects as his favorite.”

 

May our loving, heavenly Father bless us, strengthen us and encourage us as we learn to love him more.

 

Peter O

 

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