Nicolas Herman was born about 1614 at Hériménil in Lorraine. At about eighteen, by his own account, the sight of a tree stripped bare in winter, waiting for the leaves, flowers and fruit of spring, gave him a lasting sense of God's providence and power. Poverty led him into the army during the Thirty Years' War; he was wounded and left lame for life, and afterwards worked as a footman.
In 1640 he entered the Discalced Carmelite priory in Paris as a lay brother, taking the name Lawrence of the Resurrection. For some fifteen years he worked in the kitchen, a task he naturally disliked, and later he mended sandals. He learned to do everything for the love of God and to keep company with him in the midst of work. He died on 12 February 1691. Joseph de Beaufort, who had recorded conversations with him, published them with his letters soon afterwards.
Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection in the library (1 work)
- Brother Lawrence: The Practice of the Presence of God — 1692; translation 1895
Conversations and letters of the Carmelite lay brother who found God as much among the pots of the monastery kitchen as at prayer.