A passage for today

When the mind, for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion, has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are difficult to overcome, and commonly draw us, even against our wills, to the things of the earth.

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, paragraph letter-8.3, translated by an anonymous translator. Read in context

Brother Lawrence was a lay brother and cook in a Carmelite house in Paris in the seventeenth century. His conversations and letters teach a simple, constant turning to God.

The daily passage by email

Receive the day’s passage each morning, with its context and a link to read it in full. This is separate from the Metanoia newsletter.

About the daily passage

Each day brings one short passage from the texts in the Library’s reader, the same for every reader, changing at midnight UTC. The texts take turns, so the days move between traditions: the Tao Te Ching, the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, Julian of Norwich, Kabīr, Marcus Aurelius, the German mystics, Tagore, Brother Lawrence, Rūmī, the Imitation of Christ, the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, Emerson and the Bhagavad Gītā.

There are 1,380 passages in all, chosen to stand on their own. Each links to its place in the text, so you can read what comes before and after.

For a longer practice, the guided paths take one text a week at a time.