About this passageNicholas Herman was a lay brother in a Carmelite house in Paris, and worked in the kitchen and later mending sandals. What survives of him is other people's notes of four conversations and a set of letters, written down because visitors kept asking how a man doing that work all day seemed unhurried. The method he describes is deliberately unimpressive: not a discipline set apart from the day but an attention carried through it, with no distinction between the hours given to prayer and the hours given to pots.
He told me that all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything which we are sensible does not lead to GOD; that we might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him, with freedom and in simplicity.
That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for GOD's sake, which we commonly do for our own. That it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards.
That it was a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times: that we are as strictly obliged to adhere to GOD by action in the time of action, as by prayer in the season of prayer.
That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of GOD, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. That we should not wonder if, in the beginning, we often failed in our endeavors, but that at last we should gain a habit, which will naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our exceeding great delight.
In plainer words
Give up whatever is plainly not taking you anywhere good, and then talk to God as you would to anyone, all day, in ordinary words. What makes a life holy is not swapping your work for better work; it is doing the same work for a different reason. Do not imagine prayer time is a separate compartment — you are as bound to God while you are working as while you are kneeling. And do not get tired of doing small things: what is being measured is not the size of the task but the love it is done with. You will fail at this often at first. Keep going and it becomes a habit, and then it happens without effort.
A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.