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The Ignatian Examen

Fifteen minutes that sanctify the rest of the day

8 min

St. Ignatius of Loyola was asked what prayer he would keep if he could keep only one. He chose the examen. In his Spiritual Exercises (§43) he gave it five steps, and he asked every Jesuit to make it twice a day — noon and evening — no matter how busy.

It is not an examination of conscience in the penitential sense, though it includes one. It is a daily review of the day with God — looking at the hours together, asking where grace moved, where you turned away, what the day is asking of tomorrow. Done faithfully, it teaches the most elusive of all spiritual skills: noticing God in the ordinary.

The examen is the anchor of the Ignatian spiritual life. Even the lay retreatant, after three days of silent Exercises, is told: if you keep nothing else, keep this.

The Five Steps

Take ten to fifteen minutes. Find a quiet place. Place yourself in God's presence — not talking to a distant judge, but sitting with a Father who already loves you and already knows the day.

1. Gratitude. Begin with thanks. Look back over the day and notice gifts — a good conversation, a meal, a mercy you did not earn. Gratitude opens the heart and changes the key of the whole prayer. Without it, the examen curdles into scrupulous self-analysis.

2. Petition for light. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the day as He sees it. Your own eyes are biased toward pride or discouragement; you need His. "Send forth your light and your truth, let them lead me" (Ps 43:3).

3. Review of the day. Walk through the hours. Not every event — the significant ones. Where did you feel drawn to God? Where did you feel pulled away? What moods and movements were in you? Ignatius calls these consolation (what drew you toward God, faith, hope, love) and desolation (what drew you away). Name them.

4. Contrition. For the failures you see, ask forgiveness. Not self-flagellation — honest sorrow. "Lord, I was impatient with her. I turned away when I could have helped. Forgive me." If something is grave, resolve to bring it to confession. Otherwise, receive the Father's mercy simply.

5. Resolution for tomorrow. One concrete thing. Not a heroic plan — a single next step. "Tomorrow I will begin with morning offering before the phone." "Tomorrow I will call him." Close with the Our Father or a short prayer into Mary's hands.

Practical Shape

When. Evening, before sleep, is the classical time — a final accounting of the day before it closes. Ignatius himself also practiced a midday examen, shorter, to reset the day. Pick one that you can keep. Begin with evening.

How long. Ten to fifteen minutes. Less, and you skim; more, and you turn it into meditation (different exercise). A timer helps at first.

Keep a journal — lightly. A notebook near the place of prayer. One line per step, not essays. Over weeks, patterns emerge: the same desolation returns at the same hour, the same consolation marks the same kind of encounter. This is the Spirit teaching you to read your own heart.

For the busy day. If fifteen minutes is impossible, take three: one breath of gratitude, one glance over the day, one sentence of contrition and resolution. A short examen daily beats a long examen weekly. Ignatius was realistic about this.

Before confession. The examen naturally matures into an examination of conscience for confession — the resolutions of several weeks show you what to bring. The two practices feed each other.

Distraction. If the mind wanders in step 3, gently return. If nothing comes to mind, ask the Spirit again. If the day feels flat, give thanks for the flatness — even that is given.

The Fruits

After a month of daily examen, you notice:

  • Gratitude becomes habitual. You begin to see gifts before you see problems. This changes everything downstream.
  • You recognize your desolations earlier. The mood that used to own you all afternoon is named by noon.
  • You recognize God's action. The coincidences, the unasked graces, the quiet promptings — you begin to see the hand that was always there.
  • Resolutions accumulate, slowly, into change. Not by force — by noticing, and by small concrete next steps.
  • Confession deepens. You bring patterns, not lists.
  • You pray without ceasing, because prayer stops being an event and becomes an awareness.

St. Francis de Sales — not a Jesuit, but a friend of the Society — wrote: "It is at the end of the day that the soul sees what the day was." The examen is the place where seeing becomes love, and love becomes change.