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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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 are really into the heart of Advent now, and I hope that you've been able to spend some time with some of the beautiful readings of the season,

among the most beautiful in the whole church year.

Most of them talk about the coming of the Messiah.

The book of Isaiah offers us some amazing imagery of the earth itself renewing,

growing, changing, flourishing, as a sign of God's ability to bring something out of nothing.

And in the Gospels, we've heard about John the Baptist's proclamation of Jesus' coming into the history of the Jewish people.

But that raises an important question. How does Jesus come into your life? Of course, probably

everyone, or mostly everyone, listening to this podcast, has already accepted Jesus into their

lives and tries to live according to Jesus' way. But what does it mean to prepare for Jesus's

entry into your life in a new way during Advent?

How can you best prepare the way? What would that mean for you? Is it in fact praying more,

or maybe being kinder to people, more generous to the poor, less judgmental, less negative, less

complaining? What would that mean? And at Christmas,

how can Jesus be born into your life in a new way? You know, in those readings from Isaiah,

God is turning even the desert into a blooming oasis. So there is nothing in your life so dead

...