Think You Don't Have Time to Pray? Try the Examen

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Sometimes it’s hard to find time to pray. Actually, most of the time. Maybe once in a while life calms down enough to lend itself to prayer, but the rest of the time, we can easily go from morning until evening barely keeping up with family, work and responsibilities, and never finding the time to talk to God.
Finding time for prayer doesn’t have to be a daunting challenge. St. Ignatius of Loyola developed a simple prayer we can say each day called the Examen. A priest recommended this prayer to me several months ago; I’ve prayed it (almost) every day since then and have found it helpful. The best part? If I have half an hour, it can fill the full half hour. If I have only 3 or 5 minutes, that’s OK – it still works.
There are many different versions of the examen, but they all consist in five basic steps that came from St. Ignatius of Loyola. 

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