The Daily Examen: A Five-Step Prayer of Review

What is the Examen prayer?

The Examen is a method of prayerful reflection on the events of the day, set out by St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. He considered it so important that he told his fellow Jesuits to keep it even on days when they had time for nothing else. It is not primarily about cataloguing sins; it is a way of finding God in all things by looking back over the hours you have just lived. Where other prayers speak to God, the Examen listens back over your day for the traces of God already speaking to you.

Traditionally the Examen is prayed once or twice a day — at midday and again before bed — and takes ten to fifteen minutes. You can pray it anywhere: sitting quietly, walking home, or resting at the end of the day. The five movements below are a guide, not a rigid script, so let the Spirit lead you through them at your own pace.

At its heart the Examen rests on a simple conviction: that God is not absent from ordinary life but woven through it, and that most of us simply move too fast to notice. A day is full of small invitations — a person who needed patience, a beauty we half-registered, a fear that quietly steered our choices — and they pass unexamined. The Examen slows the film down and plays it back, not to judge each frame but to see, gratefully and honestly, where grace was moving. Over weeks and months it trains a habit of attention that begins to carry into the day itself, so that you catch God's presence in the moment more often, not only in hindsight.

Where the Examen comes from

Ignatius of Loyola was a Basque soldier who, recovering from a battle wound in 1521, began to notice something about his own daydreams: some left him restless and empty, others left him quietly at peace, and he learned to read those interior after-effects as signs of where God was drawing him. That attentiveness to inner movement became the seed of his whole spirituality. When he later composed the Spiritual Exercises, a manual for a directed retreat, he placed the daily Examen among its practical methods of prayer.

Ignatius and his first companions founded the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, in 1540, and the Examen became a hallmark of Jesuit life — a daily discipline held onto even when other prayers had to be set aside. For centuries it was practiced mainly within religious communities, but in recent decades it has spread far beyond them. Retreat directors, spiritual writers, and ordinary lay Christians have recovered it as one of the most accessible fruits of the Ignatian tradition, and today it is prayed by people of many backgrounds who have never set foot in a Jesuit house.

Its foundation in Scripture

Although Ignatius gave the Examen its particular five-fold shape, the instinct behind it runs all through the Bible. The Psalms repeatedly turn the day's experience back toward God in reflection: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts" (Psalm 139:23). The examined life, laid open before God rather than defended, is a deeply scriptural posture.

Gratitude, the Examen's first movement, echoes Paul's counsel to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). The honest facing of failure in the light of mercy recalls the tax collector who "would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13) — and whom Jesus declared went home justified. The daily rhythm of setting the day right before nightfall answers Paul's advice, "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry" (Ephesians 4:26). And the whole practice of testing one's experience to discern what is of God reflects the exhortation to "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The Examen does not invent these movements; it gathers them into a single daily prayer.

Step 1: Give thanks for the day

Begin by placing yourself in God's presence and giving thanks. Recall the specific gifts of the day just past — a conversation, a meal, work completed, a moment of beauty or rest. Gratitude is the doorway to the Examen because it trains you to see your life as gift rather than achievement. Do not rush this step; name the concrete graces you actually received today, both large and small.

Begin with the particular, not the general. "Thank you for my life" is true but easy to say without feeling; "thank you for the ten quiet minutes on the walk home, and for my friend's phone call" draws you back into the real texture of the day. Ignatian spirituality trusts the concrete, because it is in concrete moments that God actually meets us. Naming small gifts is not sentimentality — it is a discipline of honesty against the pull of a grumbling or anxious heart, which forgets the good as quickly as it receives it.

Gratitude also sets the tone for everything that follows. When you begin by remembering that you are loved and provided for, you can look at the harder parts of the day — your failures, your fears — without panic or self-loathing, because you are looking at them from inside a relationship you already trust. Skip this step and the review can curdle into mere self-criticism. Start here, and the whole prayer stays warm.

Step 2: Ask for the light of the Holy Spirit

Before reviewing the day, ask God for the grace to see it as he sees it. On your own you will notice only what flatters or worries you; with the Spirit's light you can look honestly and without despair. This step is what makes the Examen prayer rather than mere self-analysis — you are asking to be shown the truth of your day, not simply trying to remember it.

There is a real difference between reviewing your day and being shown your day. Left to ourselves, we tend to replay the moments that wounded our pride or fed our anxieties, and to skip over the ones that quietly matter. Asking for the Spirit's light is a way of handing the remote control to God — letting the review be guided rather than driven by your own moods. It is a small act of trust that says: I would rather see truthfully than comfortably.

This is also why the Examen does not collapse into worry or rumination, which can look superficially similar. Rumination circles the same wound alone and gets nowhere; the Examen looks at the same day in company, in the light of a God who is merciful and who wants your freedom. The difference is the One you have asked to be present. Keep the request simple — a single sentence is enough — and then let it shape the honesty of everything that follows.

Step 3: Review the day

Walk back through the day from morning until now, as if replaying it hour by hour. Notice where you felt drawn toward God — moments of love, peace, and freedom that Ignatius called consolation — and where you felt pulled away, into anxiety, resentment, or restlessness, which he called desolation. Attend to your interior movements, not only your outward actions. What were you feeling, and where were you responding to grace or quietly resisting it?

You do not have to reconstruct every minute. Some people prefer to move chronologically from waking to now; others simply ask, "Where did I feel most alive today, and where most drained?" and follow the answer. Both are valid. The point is not a complete inventory but an honest attentiveness to the moments that carried weight — the ones you keep returning to, or the ones you would rather forget.

Pay special attention to your feelings, because for Ignatius the emotions are not noise to be ignored but data to be read. A flash of resentment, a wave of gratitude, an inexplicable heaviness — each is a signal worth noticing, a place where something was moving beneath the surface of your choices. You are not judging the feelings themselves but asking what they reveal: where you were being drawn toward love, freedom, and peace, and where toward fear, self-absorption, or despair. Over time this daily practice sharpens your ability to recognize those movements as they happen, which is the beginning of what Ignatius called discernment.

Step 4: Face your shortcomings

Where the review surfaces failure — impatience, a harsh word, a kindness left undone — face it honestly and ask God's forgiveness. This is done in confidence, not shame: you look at your faults in the light of God's mercy, trusting that you are loved even here. For Catholics, a habitual Examen naturally prepares the heart for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but the daily prayer itself is an act of contrition and trust.

Notice that this is the fourth movement, not the first. The Examen deliberately refuses to begin with your sins, because a heart that starts with failure tends to drown in it. By the time you reach this step you have already given thanks and asked for light, so you face your faults from a place of security rather than dread. Contrition, in the Christian tradition, is not the same as self-punishment: it is honest sorrow held inside confident trust in mercy.

It is worth also noticing the good you did — the patience you managed, the small courage, the kindness you almost skipped and gave anyway — and thanking God for it, since these too are the fruit of grace and easy to overlook. And beware of two opposite distortions. One is to excuse everything and face nothing; the other is to magnify every fault into evidence that you are beyond help. The Examen steers between them: it takes your failures seriously enough to name them and God's mercy seriously enough not to despair of them.

Step 5: Look toward tomorrow

Finally, look ahead. Ask for the grace you will need for the day to come — patience for a difficult meeting, courage for a hard conversation, perseverance in some good resolve. Decide concretely how you want to respond to God tomorrow. Many people close the Examen with the Our Father, gathering the whole prayer into the words Jesus taught his disciples.

Let the resolve be small and specific rather than grand and vague. "I will be more loving" tends to evaporate by morning; "I will listen to my colleague without interrupting" gives grace something concrete to work on. The Examen is not a self-improvement program you drive by willpower — it is a handing of tomorrow to God with your hopes and your known weaknesses named honestly. You ask for the grace; you do not manufacture it.

Ending with the Our Father, or another familiar prayer, gently closes the review and returns you from your own day to the wider prayer of the whole Church. Some people add a moment of simply resting in God's presence before rising, letting the day be truly finished. However you close it, the last note is meant to be one of peace and trust, not anxious resolution — you are placing tomorrow, like today, in hands that are kinder than your own.

When and where to pray it

Ignatius suggested praying the Examen twice a day, around midday and again in the evening, so that the day could be caught while it was still fresh and then reviewed as a whole before sleep. Many people today pray it once, at day's end, and that is entirely enough to form the habit. Choose a time you can actually keep — a fixed slot is easier to protect than a vague intention to pray "sometime."

The prayer travels well. You can pray it in a quiet chair, but also on a commute, on a walk, while the kettle boils, or lying in bed before sleep. What matters is a measure of stillness and honesty, not a particular posture or place. Some find it helps to light a candle or open a window; others simply close their eyes. If evenings leave you too tired to think, try it earlier — on the way home, or before dinner — rather than abandoning it altogether. The best time to pray the Examen is the time you will not skip.

When your mind wanders

Distraction is not a sign that you are praying the Examen badly; it is a sign that you are a human being praying. Every experienced person of prayer, Ignatius included, knew the wandering mind. When you notice you have drifted — into tomorrow's to-do list, an old argument, a stray worry — simply return, gently and without scolding yourself, to wherever you left off. The returning is itself part of the prayer.

Sometimes the very thing that keeps intruding is worth attending to rather than banishing. A worry that will not leave you alone during the review may be exactly the interior movement the Spirit wants you to notice — a place of desolation asking to be named and handed over. Other times a distraction is just fatigue or noise, and the kind thing is to let it go and carry on. Learning to tell the difference comes only with practice, and gently. If a session feels scattered and fruitless, that too can be offered to God; the fidelity of showing up matters more than the felt quality of any single day's prayer.

Common mistakes to avoid

The most frequent mistake is turning the Examen into a guilt inventory — reducing all five steps to step four and ending each night feeling worse. If your Examen consistently leaves you discouraged rather than grateful and hopeful, you have likely collapsed it into self-accusation and dropped the gratitude and light that are meant to frame it. Rebuild the front of the prayer and the whole thing rights itself.

A second mistake is aiming for length and thoroughness instead of honesty. The Examen is not improved by dragging it out or by producing an exhaustive account of the day; five faithful, truthful minutes are worth more than a wandering half hour done out of scruple. A third is treating it as pure introspection — psychology without prayer. Skipping the request for the Spirit's light turns the Examen into mere self-analysis and loses precisely what makes it Christian prayer: that you are looking at your day with God, not merely at yourself. Finally, many people quit after a week because they feel nothing dramatic. The Examen works slowly, like a habit of attention being formed underneath conscious notice; its fruit is usually gradual, and its greatest enemy is impatience.

Variations across traditions

The Examen in its five-step form belongs to the Ignatian, and therefore Catholic and specifically Jesuit, tradition, and Catholics often relate it to the examination of conscience and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But the wider instinct of reviewing the day before God is shared across Christian traditions, and many pray a version of it without using Ignatian language.

In the Anglican tradition, the practice of "self-examination" has long had a place, particularly through the office of Compline, the Church's night prayer, which includes a confession and a settling of the day before sleep. Many Protestant and evangelical Christians keep an informal evening reflection — thanking God for the day and confessing its failings — that maps closely onto the Examen's movements even where the name is unfamiliar. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, evening prayers likewise include a review of the day and confession of sins as part of the daily prayer rule, though shaped by Orthodoxy's own liturgical texts rather than by Ignatius. These are genuinely distinct practices with their own histories, not the Examen under other names; but they show that the impulse the Examen refines — to hand the day back to God each night, grateful and honest — runs broadly through the Christian family.

A simple daily rule

If you want a bare-bones version to start with tonight, keep it to five short beats. Settle and give thanks for two or three specific gifts of the day. Ask God to show you the day truly. Walk back through it, noticing where you felt drawn toward love and where drawn away. Name one failure and receive God's mercy for it. Ask for the grace you will need tomorrow, and close with the Our Father. That is the whole prayer, and it need take no more than five minutes.

Consistency is what turns this from an exercise into a formation. Anchor it to something you already do every day — brushing your teeth, getting into bed, the last cup of tea — so that the habit rides on an existing rhythm rather than requiring fresh willpower each night. Do not worry about doing it perfectly or feeling it deeply; worry only about showing up. A short, honest Examen prayed most nights will shape you far more than a long, elaborate one prayed now and then.

How do you make the Examen a daily habit?

The Examen rewards repetition. Praying it at the same time each day — most commonly in the evening, before sleep — turns scattered reflection into a steady rhythm of noticing God's presence. Keep it short and honest rather than long and perfect; five faithful minutes are worth more than an occasional hour. Some people find it helpful to journal a line or two, or to use a guided version that walks them through the five steps.

A brief written record can help more than you might expect. Jotting a single line each night — the day's clearest consolation, its clearest desolation, and one grace to ask for — builds a quiet log of your interior life that reveals patterns over weeks: the situations that repeatedly drain you, the people who bring you life, the same resolve you keep needing to make. Ignatian discernment feeds on exactly this kind of noticed pattern.

If you would like to be led step by step, Bosko includes a guided Examen that moves gently through gratitude, light, review, sorrow, and resolve, with room to pause and pray in your own words. Whether guided or on your own, the aim is the same: to end each day in God's presence, grateful and unafraid.

Frequently asked questions

When should I pray the Examen?

Traditionally once or twice a day — Ignatius suggested around midday and again in the evening. Many people today pray it just once, at the end of the day before sleep. The best time is whichever one you can keep consistently; a fixed slot anchored to an existing habit is easier to protect than a vague intention.

How long does the Examen take?

Usually ten to fifteen minutes, though a shorter five-minute version works well as a daily habit and is often the wiser place to start. Consistency matters far more than length — five honest minutes most nights will shape you more than an occasional hour.

Is the Examen only for Catholics?

No. Its particular five-step form grew out of Catholic and Jesuit spirituality, but Christians of many traditions pray it as a simple, Scripture-friendly way to review the day with God. Anglican, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians keep their own related practices of nightly self-examination as well.

How is the Examen different from an examination of conscience?

An examination of conscience focuses on identifying sins, often in preparation for Confession. The Examen is broader — it reviews the whole day for God's presence with gratitude and discernment, and includes, but is not limited to, facing your faults. In the Ignatian mind the two are related, and a habitual Examen naturally prepares the heart for Reconciliation, but they are not the same exercise.

Who created the Examen?

St. Ignatius of Loyola, a former soldier who founded the Jesuits, set it out in his Spiritual Exercises in the sixteenth century. It grew from his own discovery that the peace or restlessness left behind by his thoughts could reveal where God was drawing him.

What are consolation and desolation?

They are Ignatian terms for interior movements. Consolation draws you toward God — love, peace, hope, freedom — while desolation pulls you away — anxiety, discouragement, resentment, restlessness. Noticing them is the heart of the review, and learning to read them over time is the beginning of what Ignatius called discernment.

What should I do when my mind wanders during the Examen?

Simply return, gently and without scolding yourself, to where you left off — the returning is part of the prayer, not a failure. Sometimes a persistent distraction is worth attending to, since a worry that keeps intruding may be exactly the movement God wants you to notice and hand over. Distraction is normal for everyone who prays; fidelity in showing up matters more than any single scattered session.