The Daily Examen (Ignatian)

The Examen — formally the Examen of Conscience, or in its fuller Ignatian form the Examen of Consciousness — is among the most influential contributions to Western Christian spirituality of the last five centuries. Its author, Íñigo López de Loyola (1491-1556), was a Basque nobleman and soldier who underwent a profound conversion during convalescence from a cannonball wound received at the siege of Pamplona in 1521. Unable to read the chivalric romances he craved, he turned to the only books available: a Life of Christ and a collection of saints' lives. In the months that followed, he began to notice that his daydreams of military glory left him feeling empty, while his imaginings of following Francis of Assisi or Dominic left him with a lasting sense of peace and joy. This observation — that interior movements of feeling are spiritually diagnostic, that consolation and desolation are God's language to the soul — became the cornerstone of Ignatian spirituality. Ignatius developed his insights into a systematic handbook of prayer and self-examination that he called the Spiritual Exercises. Written between roughly 1522 and 1548, the Exercises were not intended as a book for private reading but as a director's manual for guiding others through an intensive retreat of thirty days (or, in the "Nineteenth Annotation" form, the same content spread over daily prayer for several months). The Examen — prescribed in the Exercises as a practice to be undertaken twice daily, at midday and again at day's end — was, in Ignatius's judgment, the single most indispensable practice of the Jesuit life. He reportedly said that if a Jesuit had to choose between the daily Mass and the daily Examen due to time pressure, he should choose the Examen, because the Examen protects and orders all other prayer. Ignatius outlined five moments in the Examen: First, gratitude: giving thanks to God for the benefits received. This movement resists the human tendency to begin introspection with accusation or anxiety. Ignatius begins with awareness of gift, training the practitioner to see the day through a lens of received grace before examining it through a lens of failure. Second, petition for light: asking God for the grace to perceive clearly. Ignatius was a rigorous empiricist of the interior life; he believed that accurate self-knowledge was impossible without divine illumination, that the human capacity for self-deception is too deep for unaided reason to penetrate. Third, review: going through the day hour by hour, attending to what Ignatius called the movements of the spirit — those interior affective experiences that draw the soul toward or away from God. This is not primarily a moral audit (though moral failures are included) but a discernment of spiritual direction. The question is not only "what did I do wrong?" but "where was God present today, and how did I respond to that presence?" Fourth, sorrow: expressing contrition for the sins, failures, and missed opportunities identified in the review. Ignatius insisted on what he called "sorrow with hope" — genuine grief over sin combined with confident trust in God's mercy, never despair. Fifth, resolution: turning toward the morrow with a specific intention, particularly attending to the circumstances in which one most easily fails or most often misses God's voice. The Examen's theological underpinning is the Ignatian conviction that God is immediately and actively present in all of creation and in every moment of ordinary life — not only in explicitly religious experiences but in a conversation with a colleague, a meal, a moment of anger, a surge of unexpected joy. The Examen is a training in what Ignatius called "finding God in all things," a phrase that became the hallmark of Jesuit spirituality and distinguished it from traditions that localized God's presence primarily in liturgy, Scripture reading, or formal meditation. The distinction between consolation and desolation is central to Ignatian discernment and therefore to the Examen. Consolation, in Ignatius's technical usage, is not simply pleasant feeling; it is any interior movement that increases faith, hope, and love, that draws the soul toward God and away from self-enclosure. Desolation, conversely, is not simply discomfort; it is any interior movement that decreases faith, hope, and love, that tempts toward tepidity, self-pity, or despair. Both consolation and desolation can masquerade as their opposite — Ignatius devoted extended attention to the "rules for the discernment of spirits" that govern the Examen — and both must be reviewed honestly. The Spiritual Exercises generated, within Ignatius's lifetime, a worldwide network of practitioners through the Society of Jesus, which he founded in 1540. Jesuits carried the Exercises — and within them, the daily Examen — to India, Japan, China, Brazil, Ethiopia, and the courts of European rulers. The tradition of directed retreats based on the Exercises continues to the present day in Jesuit retreat houses on every continent. In the twentieth century, the Examen was rediscovered by a wide audience well beyond Jesuit circles. The American Jesuit George Aschenbrenner published an influential 1972 essay, "Consciousness Examen," in which he distinguished between a mere moral inventory (examining what one has done) and the fuller Ignatian practice of examining how God's Spirit has been moving in one's consciousness throughout the day. This reframing made the Examen accessible to Protestants and others who were not drawn to traditional examination of conscience. Writers such as Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Matthew Linn, as well as Jesuit Timothy Gallagher, have produced widely read popular expositions that have carried the Examen into evangelical and mainline Protestant devotional culture. The biblical roots of the Examen lie in the Hebrew and Christian traditions of honest self-examination before God. Psalm 139:23-24 — "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" — is perhaps the most direct Scriptural counterpart: a prayer that invites not self-examination alone but divine examination, trusting that God's searching is more accurate and more merciful than any self-scrutiny. Lamentations 3:40 — "Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord" — situates the practice of self-examination within the movement of repentance and return that is the heartbeat of biblical spirituality.

The Examen is most naturally prayed in the evening, either before or after supper, when the day's events are still fresh but the urgency of activity has eased. A quiet chair, a few minutes of stillness, and a willingness to be honest are the only requirements. Begin with a deliberate pause. Ignatius recommended beginning all prayer with a moment of recollection — simply becoming aware that you are in God's presence. Take a slow breath and let the day's momentum subside. Step one: Gratitude. Do not rush this movement. Let the question "what am I grateful for today?" open into specific memories. The person who smiled at you unexpectedly. The moment of unexpected clarity in a difficult task. The taste of food, the warmth of a familiar room, the fact of being alive. Gratitude is not a preliminary courtesy before the real business of self-examination; it is itself a theological act, the recognition that everything received is gift. Step two: Petition for light. Pray simply: "Lord, let me see this day as you see it." This brief prayer is more important than it may appear. Ignatian spirituality presupposes that honest self-knowledge is a grace, not simply an act of willpower, and that the same tendencies toward self-justification and self-condemnation that distort our perception of the day can equally distort our examination of it. Step three: Review. Move through the day, hour by hour if possible, but at minimum through its significant moments and encounters. The Ignatian practitioner is not primarily asking, "did I keep the rules?" but, "where did I feel drawn toward God today, and where did I feel drawn away?" Pay particular attention to emotional responses: what caused anxiety, irritation, or defensiveness? What caused unexpected peace, joy, or generosity? These affective movements are data; they point to where God is working and where resistance remains. Some practitioners find it helpful to ask a series of specific questions during the review: Where did I give and receive love well today? Where did I act out of fear rather than faith? Was there a moment when I sensed God's invitation and turned away from it? Was there a moment of grace that I almost missed? Step four: Sorrow. Having reviewed the day honestly, name the failures. The Ignatian emphasis here is on sorrow as a relational response — grief because I have failed Someone I love — rather than guilt as psychological distress. Speak to God directly about what you are sorry for, and receive the assurance of forgiveness. This movement can include a brief formal act of contrition or simply spontaneous acknowledgment. Step five: Resolution. Look at tomorrow. Are there situations coming in which you know your weaknesses will be tested? Is there a relationship that needs attention, a habit that needs interruption, a fear that needs to be handed to God? Choose one specific, concrete intention for the morning rather than a vague aspiration. Ignatius believed that the Examen's value lay in its cumulative effect: small, specific adjustments made daily transform the soul over months and years. Close with the Lord's Prayer or a brief commendation of the night to God. The whole Examen, when it becomes habitual, can be done in ten to fifteen minutes. Ignatius prescribed it twice daily — at noon and evening — but for most people once per day in the evening is a sustainable and deeply fruitful practice. Over time, regular practitioners of the Examen typically report a growing ability to notice God's presence during the day itself, not only in retrospect — a growing sensitivity to the voice of the Spirit in the ordinary texture of life that is the ultimate goal Ignatius had in mind.