By Pope Leo XIV
This small book places at the center the experience—indeed, the practice—of the presence of God, as it was experienced and taught by the Carmelite friar Lawrence of the Resurrection, who lived in the seventeenth century.
As I have had occasion to say, together with the writings of Saint Augustine and other books, this is one of the texts that have most shaped my spiritual life and have formed me in what the path can be for knowing and loving the Lord.
The path Brother Lawrence points out to us is simple and arduous at the same time. Simple, because it requires nothing other than constantly calling God to mind, with small, continual acts of praise, prayer, supplication, adoration, in every action and in every thought, having as our horizon, source, and end Him alone. Arduous, because it demands a journey of purification, of ascetic discipline, of renunciation and conversion of the most intimate part of us—of our mind and our thoughts even more than of our actions.
It is what Saint Paul already wrote to the faithful of Philippi: “Have in you the same sentiments as Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). Therefore, it is not only our attitudes and behaviors that must be conformed to God, but precisely our sentiments—our very way of feeling. In this interiority we find His presence, the loving and burning presence of God, so “other” and yet familiar to our heart. As Saint Augustine writes, “the new man will sing the new song” (Sermons 34,1).
The experience of union with God, described in Brother Lawrence’s pages as a personal relationship made of encounters and conversations, of concealments and surprises, of trusting and total abandonment, calls to mind the experiences of the great mystics—first among them Teresa of Ávila, who had also testified to this familiarity with the Lord to the point of speaking of a “God of the pots and pans.” However, it indicates a path accessible to all, precisely because it is simple and everyday.
Like many mystics, Brother Lawrence also speaks with great humility but also with humor, because he knows well that every earthly thing, even the most grand—and even dramatic—is a very small thing before the infinite love of the Lord. Thus, he can say ironically that God “deceived” him, because he, having entered the monastery perhaps a little presumptuously in order to sacrifice himself and harshly expiate the sins of his youth, found there instead a life full of joy.
Through the path that Brother Lawrence proposes to us, little by little, as the presence of God becomes familiar and occupies our inner space, the joy of being with Him grows, graces and spiritual riches blossom, and even daily tasks become easy and light.
The writings and testimonies of this Carmelite lay brother of the seventeenth century, who with luminous faith lived through the troubled events of his century—certainly no less violent than ours—can be an inspiration and a help also for the life of us men and women of the third millennium. They show us that there is no circumstance that can separate us from God, that every action of ours, every occupation, and even every mistake of ours acquires an infinite value if they are lived in the presence of God, continually offered to Him.
All Christian ethics can truly be summed up in this continual calling to mind the fact that God is present: He is here. This remembrance, which is something more than a simple memory because it involves our sentiments and affections, overcomes every moralism and every reduction of the Gospel to a mere set of rules, and shows us that truly, as Jesus promised us, the experience of entrusting ourselves to God the Father already gives us the hundredfold here below. Entrusting ourselves to the presence of God means tasting an anticipation of Paradise.
Vatican City, 11 December 2025 – Vatican News
