by Fr Anthony Lemon
As each day, each week, month or year passes our parish and diocesan life grows and changes. It is part of the rhythm of life. A new parish priest or assistant priest is appointed. In our dioceses across Australia, new bishops are appointed. In our parish life we mourn the retirement of a wonderful parishioner who is moving to a new home. There is often a sense of sadness when change occurs. How will that parishioner, priest, or bishop ever be replaced.
Yet, God always renews. Each baptised member of the faithful will bring their own God given gifts and talents to the parish. No, it’s not the same, it’s different because each of us is distinct, and each of us has his or her own unique gifts.
Change occurs at all levels of the Church, even the pope. The mourning of a beloved deceased pope takes time, healing, and God’s grace. In my lifetime I remember well the warmth and holiness of St Pope Paul VI. The fervour and evangelising spirit of St John Paul II, a priest formed in the turmoil and harshness of communist Poland, he bought passion and zeal for God’s Church to his pontificate. The scholarly, gentle holiness of Pope Benedict XVI, a pope who with great courage stepped aside and resigned his pontificate.
We than had the outgoing, gregarious Pope Francis whose great gift was to remind us of our need to be a Church where the poor, the lonely, the despised, the immigrant, even the godless could find a home, a shelter, and the warmth of God’s love. A message of love is at times hard to embrace, as our humanity often fears the person or peoples who are different. Pope Francis knew his message was tough, so he often led by personal example.
When a cardinal is elected as the pope he brings to the Petrine Ministry years of study, pastoral practice, diocesan and parish leadership, his own hopes, dreams and aspirations. His years of experience and deep personal prayer sustain him in his new ministry. Pope Leo XIV brings to the papacy a life lived in the spiritual practice of the Augustinian friars. His life as a missionary, his younger years as child and student in Chicago, but of particular note his devotion to Brother Lawrence’s little book, The Practice of the presence of God.
Pope Leo in his own words said last year: “This small book places at the centre the experience —indeed, the practice — of the presence of God, as it was experienced and taught by the Carmelite friar Lawrence of the Resurrection, who lived in the seventeenth century. As I have had occasion to say, together with the writings of Saint Augustine and other books, this is one of the texts that have most shaped my spiritual life and have formed me in what the path can be for knowing and loving the Lord.”
It is worth noting that Br Lawrence was not a theologian or a great intellect, he was the monastery cook, and later the maker and repairer of sandals. His simplicity and his devotion to God in all matters big or small slowly began to attract those who were highly educated and deeply faithful to those whose faith was simple and uncomplicated and maybe who could not even read or write. His was disfigured due to war time wounds: he regarded himself as clumsy. He was not schooled in the finer points of life, yet in his simplicity he was open to the amazing power that a relationship with the Lord could bring.
Pope Leo went on to say: “The path Br Lawrence points out to us is simple and arduous at the same time. Simple, because it requires nothing other than constantly calling God to mind, with small, continual acts of praise, prayer, supplication, adoration, in every action and in every thought, having as our horizon, source, and end Him alone. Arduous, because it demands a journey of purification, of ascetic discipline, of renunciation and conversion of the most intimate part of us — of our mind and our thoughts even more than of our actions.”
Pope Leo invites us to constantly be in the presence of God in what we do, when we are dismissed from Sunday Mass the challenge is to continue and prayerfully keep our focus on God. To invite God into our daily lives and tasks: “Through the path that Br Lawrence proposes to us, little by little, as the presence of God becomes familiar and occupies our inner space, the joy of being with Him grows, graces and spiritual riches blossom, and even daily tasks become easy and light,” Pope Leo says.
Could it be that Pope Leo’s devotion to Br Lawrence from the seventeenth century could provide us with an antidote to the constant busyness and rush of daily life. In my last article, in the March edition of Catholic Life, I wrote about the ways in which we could assist in the renewal of our parishes. We could ask ourselves what might my life look like if I was genuinely devoted to the practice of looking for and seeking the presence of God in my everyday life.
I wish you well as we journey together in our relationship with God, a God who loves us intimately and always.
With every best wish and God’s blessings.
Further reading
- Pope Leo’s speech on sea refugees in Arguineguín, Canary Islands, 12 June 2026
- Pope Leo’s address to the Spanish Parliament, 8 June 2026
- Pope Leo’s Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, 15 May 2026
- Pope Leo: Br Lawrence teaches us joy of living each day in God’s presence, 19 December 2025
