The Examen

The Daily Review of Conscience

What It Is

The Examen is a structured prayer of reflection prayed at the end of the day. Its purpose is to review the preceding hours in the presence of God — to identify where God was active, where the soul responded well, and where it failed. It is a practice of developing spiritual awareness over time.

The word examen is Latin. It refers to the tongue of a balance scale — the instrument that measures. The Examen is a weighing of the day.

The form most commonly practiced today comes from Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who regarded it as the most important prayer in his Spiritual Exercises and the one practice he was least willing to see his Jesuits omit. He considered it more essential than mental prayer, Mass attendance aside. The reason is straightforward: a person who does not know where they are failing cannot correct course. The Examen is the instrument of that knowledge.

Background

Examination of conscience as a spiritual practice predates Ignatius. The Stoic philosophers practiced a daily review of the day's actions. Saint Paul exhorts the Corinthians to examine themselves before receiving the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:28). The desert fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries practiced a form of daily review as part of their discipline of nepsis— watchfulness over the movements of the soul. The monastic tradition carried this forward through the examen conscientiae, which was a standard element of the spiritual life in religious communities throughout the medieval period.

What Ignatius contributed was a structured five-step method, a particular emphasis on gratitude as the starting point, and a theological framework centered on consolation and desolation — terms he defined precisely and which give the Examen its distinctive shape.

The Examen is distinct from the Sacrament of Confession. It does not replace confession and does not forgive sin. It is a prayer of awareness and intention, not an act of absolution. Its fruit is clarity about the state of the soul and the movements of grace and sin across the day — clarity that, over time, disposes the person for a more fruitful confession and a more attentive daily life.

The Five Movements

Ignatius described the Examen in five steps in the Spiritual Exercises (Exx 43). The steps are not a checklist. They are movements of prayer that flow into one another. The whole practice typically takes fifteen to twenty minutes.

1. Gratitude

Begin by placing yourself in the presence of God and giving thanks for the specific gifts of the day. Not generic thanksgiving — specific. The meal, the conversation, the moment of clarity, the unexpected kindness, the work that went well, the ordinary grace of being alive on this particular day.

Ignatius began with gratitude because ingratitude is, in his view, the root of serious sin and the condition of the soul least disposed to receive grace. A person who does not notice what has been given cannot see where God is acting. Gratitude opens the eyes before the review begins.

This is not optimism or positive thinking. It is a theological act: acknowledging that everything good in the day came from God and that the day was not empty of him, regardless of how it felt.

2. Ask for Light

Before reviewing the day, ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to see it clearly. This step is brief but essential. The Examen is not self-analysis. It is prayer. The difference matters: self-analysis depends on the acuity of the one examining; prayer depends on the grace of the one who illuminates.

The petition is simple: Lord, show me this day as you see it. Show me where you were present and where I failed to respond.

3. Review the Day

Move through the day from its beginning to the present moment. Review the events, conversations, decisions, and interior movements — the feelings, desires, impulses, and resistances — that arose throughout the day.

Two questions guide the review. The first: where did I notice God's presence and respond to it? The second: where did I resist grace, act against my values, sin, or fail another person?

The review is not a forensic inventory of sins. It is a search for patterns: where did consolation arise? Where did desolation? What provoked the movement from one to the other? The goal is not only to identify failures but to understand them — to see what conditions, habits, or relationships produce spiritual desolation and what conditions produce consolation.

Consolation, in Ignatius's usage, is not simply feeling good. It is any interior movement that increases faith, hope, and love — that draws the soul toward God. It can arise in suffering. Desolation is not simply feeling bad. It is any interior movement that decreases faith, hope, and love — that draws the soul away from God and toward self-enclosure, distrust, or isolation. Understanding these movements, and how to respond to each, is the long-term formation the Examen is designed to produce.

4. Sorrow and Contrition

Having identified specific moments of failure — sin, negligence, unkindness, selfishness, ingratitude, avoidance — express sorrow to God directly. Not vague regret, but specific contrition for specific acts or omissions.

This is not self-condemnation. Ignatius was careful to distinguish between genuine contrition, which leads to conversion, and excessive guilt, which leads to paralysis and despair. The former is a grace. The latter is a temptation. The difference is directional: genuine contrition moves the soul toward God and toward amendment; excessive guilt moves it inward and downward.

A brief act of contrition is appropriate here — the standard prayer or one's own words.

5. Resolution and Hope

Close the Examen by looking at tomorrow. What is on the horizon? Where will the challenges of the next day likely arise? What specific grace will be needed? Ask God for it.

Make one concrete resolution — not many. The Examen closes with a single point of amendment or intention for the coming day. This keeps the practice ordered toward action rather than remaining purely interior.

End with the Our Father or a brief prayer of trust.

How Often to Pray It

Ignatius prescribed the Examen twice daily: at midday and in the evening. The midday Examen is a shorter version reviewing only the morning. The evening Examen reviews the full day. This remains the ideal for those in the Ignatian tradition and for members of the Society of Jesus.

For most laypeople, a single daily Examen prayed in the evening — before sleep, when the day is still accessible in memory — is the standard and sufficient practice. Five to twenty minutes is the typical range. Less than five minutes is too brief for genuine review. More than twenty-five minutes risks excessive rumination.

The Examen should be prayed consistently enough that it becomes a habit — not an occasional exercise consulted in moments of crisis, but a daily structure that builds cumulative self-knowledge over months and years. Its value is largely longitudinal. A single Examen produces limited insight. Six months of daily Examen produces a person who knows their patterns of sin and grace with considerable precision.

The Examen and Discernment

Ignatius connected the Examen directly to the broader practice of discernment of spirits — the ability to recognize the movements of grace and temptation in the interior life and to respond correctly to each.

The Spiritual Exercises contain two sets of rules for discernment of spirits (Exx 313–336). The rules describe consolation and desolation in detail, identify the tactics of the enemy in each state, and prescribe responses. They presuppose a person who has enough interior awareness to notice these movements — awareness that the Examen, prayed daily over time, is specifically designed to develop.

Without the daily Examen, discernment remains largely theoretical. With it, the person gradually learns to read the interior life the way a sailor reads wind and current — not perfectly, but with increasing confidence and accuracy.

This is why Ignatius ranked the Examen above other forms of mental prayer in practical importance. Mental prayer deepens the relationship with God. The Examen applies what that relationship produces to the actual texture of daily life.

Common Errors

Turning it into a sin list. The Examen is not the same as an examination of conscience before confession, though the two have overlapping content. If the review consists only of cataloguing sins without attending to gratitude, consolation, desolation, or pattern, it has been reduced to a bookkeeping exercise. The full structure matters.

Praying it too late or too tired. Praying the Examen at the point of falling asleep produces nothing. The mind needs enough wakefulness to actually review the day. Fifteen minutes before sleep, not during the final minutes of consciousness.

Expecting immediate clarity. The Examen is a long-term practice. A person who has prayed it for two weeks will notice different things than a person who has prayed it for two years. Expecting rapid, dramatic insight will produce discouragement. The practice rewards patience.

Excessive focus on failure. A consistent emphasis on what went wrong, with little attention to consolation, gratitude, or God's presence, distorts the Examen and can produce scrupulosity or despondency. The review of failure exists within a larger context of gratitude and trust. If the balance has been lost, restore it by extending time on the first and last movements.

Praying it irregularly. The Examen prayed three times one week and not at all for the following two weeks is not the Examen as Ignatius intended it. Consistency is not perfectionism — missed days happen. But the practice is daily by design.

The Examen and Confession

The Examen does not replace the Sacrament of Confession. Sin is forgiven in the confessional, not in the review of conscience. The relationship between the two is one of preparation and continuation.

The Examen, prayed consistently, produces a person who comes to confession with greater clarity about what to confess, greater understanding of their habitual patterns of sin, and greater specificity in expressing contrition. It also helps avoid the problem of a confession that is technically complete but spiritually superficial — the recitation of a fixed list of generic sins without genuine examination of what actually happened in the soul over the preceding weeks.

Confessing regularly and examining daily are complementary practices. Neither substitutes for the other.

For Further Reading

The Spiritual Exercises — Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The source text. The Examen appears in the First Week (Exx 24–44). The rules for discernment of spirits appear in the First and Second Week rules (Exx 313–336). The Exercises are not light reading and are designed to be made with a director, but the Examen section is accessible independently.

The Examen Prayer — Timothy M. Gallagher, OMV. The clearest modern exposition of the Ignatian Examen for ordinary readers. The standard recommendation for anyone beginning the practice.

Discernment of Spirits — Timothy M. Gallagher, OMV. The companion volume. Treats the rules for discernment in detail. Read after the Examen is established as a habit.

A Simple Life-Changing Prayer — Jim Manney. A short, accessible introduction. Suitable for someone with no prior exposure to Ignatian spirituality.

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius — translated by Louis J. Puhl, SJ. The standard English translation for academic and directed use. Puhl's notes are useful.

Conscientia — various Jesuit publications. Many Jesuit institutions publish short guides to the Examen for distribution. These are often available free from university or retreat center websites and are reliable introductions.

CCC references: Examination of conscience — §1454. Contrition — §1451–1453. Discernment — §1768–1770. The role of conscience — §1776–1802. Conversion and penance — §1430–1433.