... a weekly letter of encouragement.
29 April,1998 - Singapore
Good Morning!
LEARNING TO PRACTICE THE PRESENCE OF GOD
Brother Lawrence ( 1611-1691 ) was a layman with no formal training, who worked during his adult years in the kitchen of a monastery in France. This devout disciple discovered the practice of living moment by moment in "the presence of God " Followrng are exerts from his writings+:
"I renounced, for the love of God, everything that was not God, and I began to live as if there was none but God and I in the world... "
"I worshipped Him as often as I could, keeping my mind in His holy presence and recalling it back to God as often as I found it had wandered from Him..."
"I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence... an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God .. "
`I imagine myself as the most wretched of all, full of sores and sins, and one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his king. Feeling a deep sorrow, I confess to Him all of my sins, I ask his forgiveness, and I abandon myself into His hands so that He may do with me what He pleases."
"This King, full of mercy and goodness, far, from chastening me, embraces me with love, invites me to feast at His table, serves me with His awn hands, and gives me the key to His treasures. He converses with me, and takes delight in me... This is how I imagine myself from time to time in His holy presence... "
The most useful method is this simple attention, done with a passionate regard toward God to whom I find myself often attached with greater sweetness and delight than that of an infant at its mother's breast. So much so that - if I dare use this expression - I choose to call this state the bosom of God because of the inexpressible sweetness which I taste and experience there."
"If sometimes my thoughts wander from God because of necessity, I am recalled back to God soon after by imvard sensations so charming and delicious that I am afraid to speak of them... "
"You will seek Me and md Me when ou seek Me with all our heart" (Jeremiah 29:13)
May God help us in our pursuit of a pure devotion to Christ.
+Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God Translated by John J. Delaney. N.Y. Doubleday,1977
My prayer is that you are having a great week!
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