Welcome to The Examine, your daily prayer hosted by Father James Martin and brought to you by America Media, a Jesuit ministry.

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notes. I'm Father Jim Martin. I'm about to lead you through a traditional Jesuit prayer

that will help you notice where God has been in your day. But first, let's begin with

our weekly reflection, which is released every Sunday. We've been talking over the last few

weeks of the Easter season about living out the resurrection. First, we talked about really believing in Christ's resurrection and its message that

nothing is impossible with God.

Last week, we talked about experiencing newness in our own lives.

This week, how about thinking about looking for it in the lives of others?

Too often, we tend to pigeonhole our friends and family. We've known our family, our whole lives, of course,

and we often have friends that we feel we've known forever.

But too often our view of them is frozen in the past,

so we can resist seeing them in new ways, giving

them space to grow.

In a sense, it's denying them the possibility of new life.

Your friends can grow and change just as you can.

With that in mind, can you allow them to be their new selves? A friend you've had in college, who may have been quite the partier or slacker,

but who is now a stable and productive husband or wife or business leader or attorney or teacher,

has probably changed a great deal.

He has let go of some old habits and some unhealthy ways of thinking.

...