Simple

Friday, September 5, 2025

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Simple

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

come into his courts with praise;

Give thanks to him; bless his name.

In the morning when I rise, I hope for a quiet day filled with God. Aware of God’s presence I’m a different person than when I swim alone.

Brother Lawrence began as a soldier and ended as a dishwashing and sandal-repairing genius of the quiet life, writing letters to many who had heard of his peaceful way and wanted to know more.  Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to work with your hands. Paul asked Brother Lawrence and the Thessalonians to give this gift to God, and Brother Lawrence heard. His accomplishments minimal, instead he strove to simply BE.

That he wrote something of this experience makes him a hero to many. “Love knows what we can do. Let’s begin. Perhaps God is only waiting for our kind intention.”

Brother Lawrence engaged in an ongoing correspondence with a nun who lived in a nearby Paris convent.

When the mind has not been taught early on how to return, to be led back to itself, it can develop some unhealthy habits of becoming distracted and scattered. These are difficult to overcome. These tendencies ordinarily drag us off to earthly things, in spite of ourselves.  

I think that a solution for this is to admit our stumbles and humble ourselves before God. During set times of silent prayer, I advise you not to use many words. Long discourses often create distractions…. Do your best to keep your mind in God’s presence. If it wanders or pulls away sometimes, don’t be discouraged. Distress tends to distract the mind rather than to focus it. We must use the will gently to bring it back.

This dishwashing brother of Christ suggested what all of us must know in our hearts, that God is near and wants us to know him. As my friend Bob’s wife said about the aftermath of the Fall in the book of Genesis, “I don’t believe God chased Eve and Adam from the garden. They left, yes, but God chased after them.” Come back, come back! God’s call to all of us is the same. Come back! Come back!

As you get used to thinking of God from time to time, it will become easy to remain calm during times of prayer, or at least to bring the mind back when it wanders.  

Brother Lawrence asks me to simply think of God from time to time. A hundred years earlier Ignatius called this the “particular examen” – simply noticing at set times of the day how your mind is processing some particular problem and turning the thought back toward God. Nothing complicated or liturgical here, although a Jesus Prayer is simple to say. Just notice God and smile.

God does not ask much of us, merely a brief thought of them from time to time. The slightest little awareness will always be very pleasant. In the middle of your tasks you can comfort yourself with Love. During your meals and conversations, lift up your heart to God. We don’t need to shout. God is closer to us than we think … even when you relax, think of God. Don’t leave them alone, just as you would not leave a friend who visits you to themselves.

He began his adult life as a teenage soldier, as did St. Francis and St. Ignatius. Wounded when his French village was attacked by the Swedes in what came to be called the Thirty Years War, Brother Lawrence joined the Order of Discalced Carmelites at age 25 and lived permanently lame with them until he died at 77. I think of Little James in The Chosen, portrayed by Jordan Walker Ross, who has cerebral palsy and scoliosis in real life. And of the writing of Ellis Peters, who wrote mysteries set in the twelfth century starring Cadfael, a Welsh soldier-turned-monk who turned his soldier’s skills to growing herbs and uncovering murderers.

Brothers and sisters:

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn of all creation.

For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

Brother Lawrence’s physical life (he described himself as “a great awkward fellow who broke everything”) belied his sweet and simple way of seeing through the daily grind into the spiritual world, which made him famous in his old age. Even more famous today, and we need his words as much as anyone ever has. Who would not like to know the sweet sound of Jesus singing in your ear when you rise?

(Colossians 1, Psalm 100, John 8, Luke 50)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

#