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Brother
Lawrence - Contemplative Monk
1611-
1691 |
 "[T]he
17th century [French] monk, Brother Lawrence, developed a technique--mostly
through inspiration and intuition--which leads to results akin
to those developed by the continued practice of either Zen or
mindfulness meditation. In The Practice of the Presence of
God, he wrote:
"This
made me resolve to give the all for the All: so after having given
myself wholly to GOD, to make all the satisfaction I could for
my sins, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was
not He; and I began to live as if there was none but He and I
in the world ... I worshipped Him the oftenest that I could, keeping
my mind in His holy Presence, and recalling it as often as I found
it wandered from Him. I found no small pain in this exercise,
and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that
occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind
had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business, as much all
the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times,
every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I
drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting
my thought of GOD. Such has been my common practice ever since
I entered into religion." From Western
Mystical Traditions (Quote
by Brother Lawrence from First
Letter)
"Dancing Violently Like a Madman"
"The
fact that Brother Lawrence was in the Carmelite order means
his spiritual practices were derived from or heavily influenced
by Teresa of Avila who reformed that order in the previous century.In
a book titled Christian Mystics, Professor Ursula King makes
the startling revelation that:
[G]iven her [Teresa of Avila] partly Jewish background, her
thinking was also affected by Jewish Kabbalistic mysticism,
elements of which can be detected in her writings.
Brother
Lawrence is often quoted by contemplative authors for his
habit of what he called "practicing the presence of God."
But what was the actual nature of this presence? Was it something
that would reflect the true character of God? I find the following
account from a devout advocate of Brother Lawrence both questionable
and disturbing:
It
is said of Brother Lawrence that when something had taken
his mind away from love's presence he would receive "a
reminder from God" that so moved his soul that he "cried
out, singing and dancing violently like a mad man." You
will note that the reminders came from God and were not his
own doing. (Gerald May, The Awakened
Heart (New York, NY:Harper Collins, First Harper Collins
Paperback Edition, 1993) p. 87, citing from The Practice
of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, translated
by John Delaney, Image Books, 1977, p. 34.)
Brother
Lawrence says that secret conversations with God must be "repeat[ed]
often in the day," and "for the right practice of
it, the heart must be empty of all other things." He
speaks of the trouble of wandering thoughts and says that
the habit of practicing the presence of God is the “one remedy"
and the "best and easiest method" he knows to dissolve
distractions. (from A
Time of Departing, 2nd ed., p. 146-147)
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Featured Resources
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Contemplative Spirituality: A belief system that
uses ancient mystical practices to induce altered states of consciousness
(the silence) and is rooted in mysticism and the occult but often wrapped
in Christian terminology. The premise of contemplative spirituality
is pantheistic (God is all) and panentheistic (God is in all). Common
terms used for this movement are "spiritual formation," "the
silence," "the stillness," "ancient-wisdom,"
"spiritual disciplines," and many others.
Spiritual Formation: A movement that has provided a platform and a channel through which contemplative prayer is entering the church. Find spiritual formation being used, and in nearly every case you will find contemplative spirituality. In fact, contemplative spirituality is the heartbeat of the spiritual formation movement. |
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