their marriage could "turn your households' rancour to pure love." As such, he agrees to be Romeo's ally in the matter and marry the two of them.

In scene 6 of act 2, Romeo and Juliet return to Friar Laurence and he helps to "incorporate two in one," meaning that he marries them. This action changes the course of the rest of the play.

This question has been edited to a single question (per eNotes policy).

Friar Lawrence makes his first appearance in Act II, scene three as he enters carrying a basket of herbs and flowers that have medicinal value.  The friar is something of a specialist when it comes to herb lore and explains to Romeo that plants have potential for both good and evil; Shakespeare uses the metaphor of plants' potential as a metaphor for man's struggle between good and evil.  The good friar advises Romeo on his new love for Juliet and ultimately views the two young lovers' marriage as a possible balm to end the feud between the Montagues and Capulets.

After gathering herbs in his garden, Friar Laurence discusses the duality of all things:

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qaulities:
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometime by action dignified.

Just as an herb can be used to make medicine or poison, so too can situations have the potential for good or evil, bounty or disaster.

Such duality suffuses every situation and character in the play. There is, of course, the love between Romeo and Juliet itself. Their love is in many ways a good thing: the union between them could force the warring Montagues and Capulets to set aside their differences since they are now literally family, ending the strife in the streets of Verona. Even on a character level, this love is potentially transformative: Juliet grows a more proactive character through her love for Romeo, and Romeo's own poetry improves once he shifts his attentions to Juliet, which is Shakespeare's subtle way of suggesting this love is truer than anything Romeo felt for Rosaline. However, their love also makes both characters prone to rash decisions since they are both still so young and easily swayed by their emotions. Their love, combined with their bad situation and their own immaturity, thus becomes deadly.

Duality is also reflected in the play's themes. Death is horrible and tragic, but the deaths of Romeo and Juliet bring the two families to their senses, ending the feud between them. Love for Juliet makes Romeo willing to turn the other cheek when Tybalt insults him, but when Mercutio is killed, love for his friend throws Romeo into a rage, leading to his killing Tybalt in turn.

Ultimately, Friar Laurence's speech foreshadows the effects of the tragic events to come. Romeo and Juliet's love is both destructive and restorative: while tragic for the individuals involved, for the society of which they are a part, their deaths put an end to the violence plaguing Verona. Both good and evil come of their story.

In act 2, scene 3, Friar Lawrence is collecting herbs and flowers to make medicine. As he makes his selection, he talks about how everything that comes from the Earth has some special quality to it, and that no plant is inherently good or poisonous. More importantly, he says that these plants only turn poisonous when they are misused by people:

Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

We can apply this idea to the feud between the Montagues and Capulets. Just as a plant can be good or evil, depending on how we use it, the men involved in this feud can also be good or evil. In other words, the Montagues and the Capulets have the ability to make a choice. They can either act badly and continue this feud, or they can change their ways and make amends. It is up to them because nothing created by nature is inherently evil.

At the beginning of act two, scene three, Friar Lawrence carries his basket, collecting various herbs and musing over nature and humanity. Friar Lawrence is depicted as a philosophical individual, who grasps the duality of nature and life, by his saying,

"The earth, that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb. What is her burying, grave that is her womb" (Shakespeare, 2.3.9–10).

Friar Lawrence is also portrayed as a religious idealist, who believes that every living thing, whether harmful or benevolent, has a specific purpose on earth, by his saying,

"Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different . . .
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give" (Shakespeare, 2.3.13–18).

He is also a hopeful, tolerant man, who believes that positive things can result from negative situations. Friar Lawrence once again displays his philosophical, introspective nature by commenting on the duality of nature and humanity. Friar Lawrence says,

"Two such opposèd kings encamp them still,
In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will" (Shakespeare, 2.3.28–29).

Similar to his musing on nature and humanity, Friar Lawrence also exhibits similar traits throughout the play. Despite Friar Lawrence's positive intentions to end the Montague and Capulet feud by secretly marrying Romeo and Juliet, his plans go awry, and both lovers end up committing suicide.

In this speech, the Friar is essentially telling Romeo to calm down. The images he employs powerfully illustrate the central point that intense, fiery emotion cannot last long. Fire consumes whatever it touches, so a lasting love must be moderate.

However sensible the Friar's advice, it is directly against the spirit of the play and Romeo and Juliet's relationship. The action takes place over a few days, in which the star-crossed lovers meet, fall passionately in love at first sight, marry, are separated, and die. The intensity of Romeo and Juliet's relationship is in direct proportion to its brevity. One cannot imagine it lasting for years, over which they might have the chance to "love moderately," or even become bored with one another.

The Friar is probably also thinking of Romeo's recent infatuation with Rosaline. This was also immoderate, though it was a very different type of love, expressed in sighs and tears rather than fiery words and passionate embraces. The audience sees this, and even Mercutio and Benvolio, who do not know what is going on, observe the change in Romeo when he falls in love with Juliet. From Friar Laurence's perspective, however, Romeo has an inconstant nature and needs to temper his romances with a modicum of stability.

In Act III of Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence becomes very involved with the fate of Romeo and Juliet; his well-meaning efforts evince his kindness, a certain wisdom, but also frustration.

In Scene 3, Romeo comes to Friar Lawrence in his despair after having killed Tybalt. The Friar tells Romeo that the Prince has fortunately changed his sentence to banishment, rather than death. But Romeo will not be comforted. This reaction of Romeo raises the ire of the priest, and he scolds Romeo:

O deadly sin! o rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law. (3.3.25-28)

However, Romeo is not comforted by being merely banished. Friar Lawrence then suggests that he be philosophical about the matter--

I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished. (3.3.55-57)

but again Romeo will not be consoled, telling the priest that being philosophical will not help him and that Friar Lawrence just does not understand.

Frustrated, Friar Lawrence scolds Romeo, but he still tries to comfort him with the fact that both he and Juliet are alive. Further, he instructs Romeo to be with his wife, but to make certain he is gone by dawn and on his way to Mantua where he will send messages to him.

There is no doubt that Friar Lawrence is a kind, loving, religious man. Perhaps, although he wisely advises Romeo against being so emotional, he takes upon himself more than he can practically handle and, therefore, is frustrated.

Friar Lawrence is Romeo’s advisor, but he is also important to the action of the play.  He is the one who increases the suspense by marrying Romeo and Juliet and by allowing Juliet to fake her death.

Romeo clearly trusts Friar Lawrence.  He is his advisor and supporter.  He moves the action along by marrying Romeo and Juliet in secret.  He does this because he thinks they will act anyway, and because he thinks that marrying the two might end the feud between their families.

In one respect I'll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love. (Act 2, Scene 3, p. 47)

By making this choice, Friar Lawrence unknowingly sets off a chain of events that does accomplish his goal, but also causes disaster for his young friend.

Friar Lawrence also agrees to help Juliet fake her death so she does not have to marry Paris.  Romeo knows nothing about this plan, and Friar Lawrence’s inability to get the message to Romeo leads to both young people’s deaths.

I married them; …
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth'd and would have married her perforce
To County Paris. (Act 5, Scene 3, p. 114)

Lawrence had a small part to play, but in realty his actions caused the suspense and drama.  If he had not married them, and if he had not helped Juliet fake her death (or if he had gotten his message through), the tragedy would not have unfolded as it did.

Friar Lawrence speaks to Juliet when she is threatening to die, so Friar Lawrence must act quickly to calm her down. First, he tells her, "Hold, daughter! I do spy a kind of hope,/Which craves as desperate an execution/As that is desperate which we would prevent" (IV.i.70-73). With one word, "execution," the Friar actually uses a pun to foreshadow his plan. He then warns her with paradoxical solution that demands that she will have die in order to live. He suggests this very poetically by saying, "That cop'st with Death himself to 'scape from it" (IV.i.77). Hence, the plot to play dead, pose in a funeral, and actually be buried in a tomb to escape her circumstances is delivered. It seems a rather aggressive, dramatic, and violent way to help a young teenager deal with her problems. It is interesting that telling the truth about the young lovers' marriage is never mentioned; but, the Friar married them in secret and might have been afraid to own up to that assistance. Sadly, it had to take the kids' death to bring out the truth and to settle the feud between the Montegues and the Capulets.

Friar Lawrence's motivation is less obvious than those of some other characters in this play, but his primary goal seems to be to minimize violence and chaos in Verona. He sees the love of Romeo and Juliet as a possible way of resolving the dispute between the Montagues and Capulets:

For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households’ rancor to pure love.

Friar Lawrence is an example of religious representation in the story by his very profession. As a friar, he is a man of the cloth, a member of a religious order. Friars, unlike monks, do not cloister themselves away in their monastic houses; rather, they are committed to serving the interests of the wider community. Friar Lawrence does live in a cell, in which he is seen several times in the play, but he is not bound to it. Instead, he spends his time interacting with others from outside his order, and he is clearly someone Romeo and Juliet can depend on and trust (albeit he does not necessarily lead them in the right direction).

It is true that Friar Lawrence is not necessarily a very pious figure—he is not defined by his express adherence to religious ideals. He does, however, make various references to God and to his role as a protector of souls from sin, which suggests that he takes his vocation seriously. For example, he asks that God "pardon sin" in the context of Romeo paying too much attention to Rosalind.

You're right to say he's rebellious. But, I don't think he's religious.

In Romeo and Juliet, and all of his plays, Shakespeare avoids religious dogma. Instead, his characters are secular and humanistic, even the men of the cloth. It's as if Shakespeare foresaw the bloody struggle that religion would cause in England for the next century (Protestants versus Catholics; the Thirty Years War; Bloody Mary).

Friar Lawrence is more interested in healing naturally than spiritually. He's more into herbs and potions than chapters and verses. Sure, he uses some religious imagery, but it pales in comparison to all the flower imagery.

Friar Lawrence is more of a father figure to Romeo than a holy father. And since much of what goes wrong in the play comes from his bad decision-making, he's arguably not a very good father figure, either.

The strongest moment of the Friar's display of his vocation and his faith is when he visits the Capulet home in Act IV, scene v, after Juliet's apparent death.  He, of course, has orchestrated her false demise from a potion, so he has probably arrived first to check on the success of the scheme.  But, once there, he must function in the role of the family priest and comfort the grieving parents with the Christian comfort that Juliet is now in "heaven."  He says:

. . .Heaven and yourself [Lord Capulet]
Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,
And all the better it is for the maid.

If Juliet were, in fact, dead, then these would be words one would expect to hear upon the death of a loved one.  She would have gone to be with her Maker, and would be better off in Heaven with God than on earth.  There is dramatic irony here, however, since the audience knows that Friar Lawrence knows that Juliet is not dead at all, merely drugged.

Another reference to his religious position as a Catholic Friar comes in Act II, scene iii, when he believes that Romeo might have spent all night with Rosaline.  He says, "God pardon sin."

Overall, I'd say that Friar Lawrence's role is far more practical than religious in this play, and it isn't always that easy to tell that he lives his life around faith and according to a set of religious principles.  The speech he makes over Juliet's "dead" body is probably the most in keeping with the doctrine of his Christian faith.

For more information on Friar Lawrence and Act IV, scene v, please follow the links below.

Friar Lawrence is admirable because he does his best to help Romeo and Juliet and he has some very impressive skills.

Friar Lawrence does seem to be the one person who really cares about Romeo and Juliet and the people of Verona. He is a good friend and advisor to Romeo. He does his best to make sure Romeo and Juliet can be together. He also has some skills with plants and potions. Despite the disastrous consequences, the sleeping potion he gave Juliet was clever and a good solution to a tricky problem. 

Friar Lawrence has the interest of all of Verona at heart.  When Romeo comes to him and tells him he has fallen in love with a Capulet, he sees it as a potential way to end the feud between the two families. He agrees to help Romeo with the hope that Romeo and Juliet's marriage would end the feud, saying,

O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households' rancour to pure love (Act II, Scene 3).

Friar Lawrence again comes to the rescue when Romeo is banished. Romeo fought and killed Tybalt. Romeo should have been executed because of this, but Prince Escalus takes pity on him and banishes him instead. Friar Lawrence scolds Romeo for crying about this, and gives him a plan.  He tells him “the world is broad and wide” (Act III, Scene 3). Romeo is to go and wait; Juliet will soon join him.

After preventing Romeo from killing himself, Friar Lawrence has to deal with Juliet. She is upset because she is being forced to marry Paris, but she is already married. Friar Lawrence gives her the potion as a way to fake her death.

To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease (Act IV, Scene 1).

In the end, it did not turn out well for Romeo and Juliet, but it was not Friar Lawrence’s fault. His messenger did not get to Romeo because of a plague. Fate was against them. Friar Lawrence does admit what he did, though, and takes responsibility. In the end, he accomplishes his main goal: the families, united in grief, end the feud.

The audience is introduced to Friar Laurence in Act 2, scene 3. He is out in the early morning gathering weeds, herbs, and flowers.  

The scene and soliloquy are important to the play because the audience learns that Friar Laurence has experience with herbal remedies, potions, and natural drugs.  He's a chemist as well as a holy man. The scene foreshadows his future involvement as a chemist and potion maker. 

The scene also highlights Friar Laurence's philosophy of good and evil.  Not only can nature be beautiful, but also it can be misused and corrupted.  The Friar says that the reverse is also true.  Good can come from evil.  Misuse can be corrected and turned to fortune. All through his soliloquy though, an audience can suspect that the Friar is talking about more than nature and plants; however, Friar Laurence flat out says (at the very end of his soliloquy) that the whole "yin/yang/good/evil" philosophy does apply to people. 

Two such opposèd kings encamp them still,
In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will.

Friar Laurence wants peace between the Montagues and Capulets, and this guides his decisions. He also tries to protect Romeo from making an unrecoverable mistake in his young love, hormone-driven as it is. In Act II Scene 3, Romeo goes to see Friar Laurence to ask him to wed himself and Juliet. At first, Laurence thinks he wants help with Rosaline, the woman who had spurned his love before he met Juliet. Friar Laurence had warned Romeo against Rosaline. Romeo says, "Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline," to which the friar replies: "For doting, not for loving, pupil mine." Laurence is therefore guiding Romeo to make wise decisions, to think despite what his heart tells him.

He also wants peace between the feuding clans. He says, "In one respect I'll thy assistant be; / For this alliance may so happy prove, / To turn your households' rancour to pure love." He believes that the marriage of Romeo and Juliet will end the senseless feud and bloodshed, and thus is happy to marry them.

Laurence takes care of Romeo like a son. When Romeo kills Tybalt (violating the Prince's direct order), Laurence hides Romeo in his cell. When Romeo learns that Juliet mourns the loss of both Tybalt and Romeo, Laurence convinces him to "man up" and appreciate that he is alive and only banished; Romeo is to go live in Mantua and wait until the friar can beg pardon of the prince, reconcile the families, and bring Romeo back. Laurence is, in all things, working behind the scenes to make peace and save lives.

When Juliet's father arranges a hasty marriage between her and Paris, Laurence hatches the plan to have her drink a potion that will make her appear dead, so she'll be "buried" in the family tomb and await Romeo--and also to save her life, since she has threatened to kill herself if she has to marry Paris. Laurence promises to send a letter to Romeo in Mantua with the plan.

He cannot foresee that Friar John will not deliver the letter in time because of a quarantine, and that the news would reach Romeo by other means first, of course.

His motivations to help everyone complicates not just his character but the plot. He tries to be everything to everyone, always doing what he feels is best to correct the wrongs and protect the innocent, but unable to do so in the end. He blames the final outcome on heaven's will.

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence and Paris do have an impact on the tragic deaths at the end of the play. First of all, when Friar Lawrence finds out that Juliet is suicidal in act 4, scene 1, and that Lord Capulet is forcing his daughter to marry Paris in a couple of days, he comes up with a plan to fake Juliet's death. This will allow her to avoid marrying Paris and give Friar Lawrence time to send a message to Romeo about their plan. It's the only plan he has to stop Juliet's attempt to kill herself and reunite the lovers in Mantua. If Friar Lawrence had come up with another plan for Juliet, rather than faking her death, the tragic ending may have been avoided. He could have advised her to marry Paris to save everyone's lives, for example. But he chooses to fake her death, which eventually causes more problems than it solves.

Paris, on the other hand, forces a tragic ending on his part when he challenges Romeo to a duel over Juliet's "dead" body. When Romeo enters the tomb, Paris realizes that Romeo is the one who killed Juliet's cousin, Tybalt. Paris then assumes that Romeo is there to do more harm to the dead bodies. When confronted, Romeo gives Paris a chance to leave him alone with Juliet's body by saying, "Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp'rate man./ Fly hence, and leave me" (V.iii.59-60). If Paris had done what Romeo told him to do, he could have saved his own life. Instead, three young people wind up dead in the last scene, rather than two. 

The lives of both Juliet and Romeo are affected adversely by Paris. Because of her forced betrothal to Paris by her parents in Act IV, Juliet, who has already secretly married Romeo, resorts to a desperate act in order to prevent herself from committing bigamy, and later at the Capulet tomb, Romeo, driven to fury by Paris's accusations that he is the cause of Juliet's suicide over the loss of Tybalt, kills Paris.

In a sense, then, Paris is the fulcrum of the tragic ends of the two lovers. In the first act, when Lady Capulet introduces the idea of her marriage to Paris, Juliet tells her mother that she will "look to like, if looking liking move"--in other words, she will look if at Paris and try to like him (1.3.99).  This urging by her mother plants the idea of love and marriage in the mind of the young Juliet, who may not have considered such concepts until this time. At any rate, this mention of Paris certainly foreshadows his involvement.

Certainly, Lord Capulet's vehement insistence that Juliet marry Paris in Act IV leads Juliet, whose emotions run high over the death of Tybalt and banishment of Romeo, to become extremely agitated. In this highly emotional state, Juliet hurries to Friar Laurence, who fashions a desperate plan to prevent Juliet from committing suicide because she has told him,

Oh, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris
From off the battlements of yonder tower....
To have an unstained wife to my sweet love. (4.2)

The priest gives her a sleeping potion which will create the semblance of death in Juliet for a time, during which he may be able to reason with Lord and Lady Capulet after explaining that Juliet has already been married.

Thus, the possibility of marriage to Paris indirectly places Juliet in a tomb, presumably dead. Further, should Romeo have not assumed that she were dead, he would not have come to her tomb where he encounters Paris. Moreover, there would have been no reason for Romeo to have wished to kill himself, which then leads Juliet to wish to join him in death after she revives from the potion.

Perhaps, the scene could open at the end of Act V as the mourners depart and Friar Lawrence remains behind, reflecting upon his own words and deeply regretting his actions. That is, a soliloquy could be created as the major part of the script.

Taking from his monologue these lines--

She wakes, and I entreated her come forth,
And bear this work of Heaven with patience.
And then a noise did scare me from the tomb,
And she too desperate would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself. (5.3.275-279)

--the student can begin the soliloquy. The key words here are "this work of Heaven," which means, of course, fate. For, throughout the play, Romeo and Juliet have tried to defy fate (Romeo even declares, "Then I defy you, stars!" (5.1.24). The friar, too, has essayed to manipulate circumstances so that Romeo and Juliet can be married and happy while he works to reconcile the feuding families because their beloved children have acted in love, thus setting the example.
But, of course, the friar has committed the cardinal sin of pride in thinking that he can ameliorate the antagonism between the Capulets and the Montagues. Moreover, he has broken one of the vows that he has taken as a priest: the vow of humility.

Therefore, as he stands alone, reflecting upon his sin of pride as he has thought himself god-like in that he could manipulate circumstances and relationships, the priest must berate himself for his sins against Heaven and the breaking of his priestly vows. Indeed, his acts of pride have wrought the deaths of two of God's creatures. In this soliloquy, too, he may cry out to Heaven, asking why he could not have died instead of the innocent Juliet.

Perhaps, the student can begin in this manner,

Death, dismay, grief, loss have I alone caused in my pride!
How have I thought myself so designing that I could deceive man and Heaven both?
I once asked Romeo if he were not "uproused by some distemperature" (see 2.3)
When it was I who wast swelled with arrogance
Oh! shame and sin must I now bear forever.....

[Here Friar Laurence can remember certain things that have happened and think what he should have done, instead. The end of his speech can be his exclamation that he has betrayed, rather than helped the families. He has been a Judas.]

When the Friar first discovers that Romeo has fallen in love with Juliet, and the young man asks for his help, he expresses reservation, but ultimately agrees:

In one respect I'll thy assistant be; 
For this alliance may so happy prove 
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

In other words, the Friar hopes to reconcile the houses of Monatgue and Capulet, whose feud has torn Verona apart, through bringing the two young lovers together. One one level, his plot is an utter disaster, claiming the lives of Romeo and Juliet in the end. In another sense, however, it is successful. Montague and Capulet, grief-stricken, do in fact agree to renounce their feud in the end. Still, the ultimate tragedy of the play is that it cost the lives of Romeo and Juliet (and Paris, Tybalt, and Mercutio) to make it happen.

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence influences Romeo by agreeing to perform the marriage in act 2, scene 2, and then, in act 3, scene 3, by telling him to wait for news in Mantua while he figures out a way for him to be reunited with Juliet. Next, Friar Lawrence influences Juliet to take a drug that will help her fake her own death in act 4, scene 2, thereby giving her a chance to escape to Mantua and finally be with Romeo.

Paris influences Juliet mostly because he has Lord Capulet's permission to marry her. If Paris had not wanted to marry her in the first place, there would not have been a need for her to fake her own death to avoid marrying him. Then, Paris forces Romeo to fight with him in act 5, scene 3 because he won't back down when Romeo tells him to leave with Juliet's body. Romeo even warns Paris by saying, "Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp'rate man" (V.iii.59) but Paris would rather fight to the death than save his life. 

When Friar Laurence says goodbye to Romeo just before Romeo leaves for his exile in Mantua, Friar Laurence says he believes the day will come when they can "reconcile [Romeo and Juliet's] friends," by which he means they can end the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets (3.3.161).  Perhaps this desire to end the ancient grudge that results in so much violence, compounded with the Friar's honest desire to see these young lovers safe and happy, motivates Friar Laurence's decision to help Romeo and Juliet. Further, when Friar Laurence addresses the Capulets on the morning they find Juliet "dead," he seems to chastise them by saying, "'twas your heaven she should be advanced." He to the fact that Juliet's parents pushed her to marry the County Paris, who they saw as a very advantageous match because he is a relation of the Prince. Had Juliet's parents cared more about her happiness or ending the feud, Friar Laurence argues, none of them would be in this position. Thus, the Friar might also be motivated by a dislike of the Capulets' parenting as well.

In terms of what he loves, Friar Laurence seems to love peace. He seems to love Romeo and Juliet, as he acts in what he believes is their best interest. He does not want Romeo to be unhappy, so he devises a way for him to marry Juliet. He does not want Juliet to kill herself, so he devises a way for her to escape her betrothal to Paris and be with Romeo. Friar Laurence just wants peace between the families and for an end to violence and pain.