Libro: The Practice of the Presence of God & The Sacrament of the Present Moment

Two essential classics of Christian spirituality in a single volume. A chapter a day – an ideal devotional.

“That's been my spirituality for many years.” — Pope Leo XIV on The Practice of the Presence of God

“The Sacrament of the Present Moment has changed forever the way I look at ‘ordinary’ life.” — Richard J. Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline.

It may seem odd that one of the classics of Christian spirituality should have been written by a man who spent most of his life working in a kitchen. Yet Brother Lawrence (1614–1691) believed it was precisely the ordinariness of his vocation that allowed him — and can allow everyone else — to draw closer to the love and presence of God. Born Nicolas Herman, Brother Lawrence experienced much of life as a soldier in the Thirty Years' War, but it was only as a monk in a Carmelite monastery in Paris that he claimed to find true tranquillity. The Practice of the Presence of God and Spiritual Maxims are the fruit of his wisdom. Through recorded conversations and short reflections on the Christian life, Brother Lawrence encourages us to discover that spiritual depth is not confined to churches or monasteries, but that God waits to meet us in the ordinary moments of everyday life.
The Jesuit priest and spiritual director Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751) taught in The Sacrament of the Present Moment that holiness and joy are found through attentive surrender to God in each moment of life. In this sense, he articulated a profoundly Christian form of mindfulness nearly three centuries before mindfulness entered the mainstream.