 my name is Erin Kinsella. I'm the Associate Director of Campus Outreach at the Newman Centre Catholic Chaplaincy in Toronto, Ontario. I'm here to share with you today about something that occupies my heart instead of Christ. And that thing is discontent. What do I mean by discontent? Well, for me, that takes the form often of complaining or comparing myself to others or looking at things in my life that are happening that I think shouldn't be happening or wanting things to happen that are not happening or whatever the case may be. These things all occupy my thoughts a lot of the time or places in my heart that I know Christ wants to occupy or where he wants to show me his love and his mercy and give me his peace and show show me his care for me and help me to trust in his in his providence and his will for my life. So I was thinking about ways that I could make more space for him during Advent. And one of the ways that I thought I could do this is by praying the examin. If you're not familiar with the examin, it's a prayer that was outlined by Saint Ignatius of Loyola. And it's a way of looking over our day with the Lord and seeing where he was and what he was offering to us, where his providence was, where his love was, and how we responded to it or didn't respond to it. So I used to pray the examin and then I got away from the practice. And I thought this would be a great time this season of Advent to get back into praying the examin. I found personally that in praying the examin when I'm able to pray with the Lord in this way in a particular time that I'm more able to pray at all times. So in having a particular time to look at where the Lord is in my life, what blessings he's giving me, how he's loving me, how he's calling me to respond to him, how he cares for me, and how he really is bringing things into my day for a specific reason. And being able to pay attention to that during the time that I'm praying the examin, it really does help me during the day to see where he is and to really be able to respond more to him in each moment as opposed to having a lot of these thoughts of discontent occupy my heart. So I'm committed to that for Advent. A great book that I could recommend on this if you're interested in doing it is by Father Timothy Gallagher and it's called The Examen. It's a great book, particularly accessible and easy to read, and I really found that it helped me when I was beginning to pray the examin as well. And if you are interested in praying the examin, a great way also to start is even to start by praying the first two steps. The first step is to place yourself in the Lord's presence. So to give him access to our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, or just to recognize that he's with us and to give him all of ourselves. And the second step is to look back on our day with gratitude, to ask the Lord to show us where he was and to see the gifts that he was giving, to see where he was showing us his extravagant love for us, and to notice where we saw it, where we received it, and where we might have missed it. And this praying of the examin can be a really great way to enter into Advent. And for me, this is what I'm committed to, to really being able to make that space in my heart for gratitude and for recognizing the Lord's deep love for me in a much more profound way. And in that, to be able to prepare myself for receiving him more deeply at Christmas.