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.

Now that we are well into ordinary time, may I make a suggestion for your prayer?

One of the practices of prayer that I do every day is to pray with the gospel reading for the day.

What does that mean?

Well, every day the church selects a series of readings, usually one from the Old Testament or the letters of St. Paul, then a Psalm,

sometimes a second reading, but then always a gospel

passage. And each year the church, depending on the year or cycle that we're in, uses a different

gospel so that we can work our way through the whole gospel with time out for special feast days.

This year we're using the Gospel of Mark.

It's the earliest gospel written, and to my mind it's earthy and exciting and fast-moving.

It seems in Mark's Gospel that Jesus is always doing something immediately. Immediately he and his disciples got into a boat.

Immediately Jesus went to this town or that town. Mark's Jesus is a man and a God in a hurry.

So now that we're still near the beginning of the liturgical year, why not start praying

with the daily readings every day?

Just imagine yourself in those readings, with as much vividness as you can.

Picture yourself standing beside Jesus as he's calling the first disciples.

We're healing someone.

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