The Prayer Ignatius Never Skipped
St Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus — the Jesuits — in 1540. He was a soldier, a courtier, a mystic, and one of the most influential figures in Catholic history. He wrote the Spiritual Exercises — a programme of prayer and discernment that has shaped millions of lives. He established schools, missions, and universities across the world.
But if you asked Ignatius which single practice was most essential to the spiritual life, he would not have pointed to the Exercises, or to Mass, or to the Rosary. He would have pointed to the Examen — a brief, daily prayer of review that he considered so important that he told his Jesuits they could skip other prayers if necessary, but never the Examen.
The Examen is not an examination of conscience — though it includes elements of one. It is broader. It is a review of the entire day in the presence of God — looking for where God was at work, where you responded to His grace, and where you resisted it.
It takes about ten minutes. It can be done anywhere. And if practised consistently, it will change how you see your life.
The Five Steps
The Examen follows five steps. Different teachers present them in slightly different ways, but the substance is consistent across the Ignatian tradition.
1. Give Thanks
Begin by placing yourself in God’s presence. Then give thanks — not in a general, abstract way, but specifically. What happened today that you are grateful for? A good conversation. A meal you enjoyed. A moment of beauty. A problem that was resolved. A kindness received.
Gratitude is the first step because it shifts your attention. You start the Examen not by looking for what went wrong but by looking for what went right — for the gifts you received, most of which you did not earn and many of which you did not notice at the time.
This step alone, practised daily, will change your disposition. You will become more aware of the good in your life — not because you are forcing optimism but because you are training your eyes to see what has always been there.
2. Ask for Light
Pray for the grace to see your day as God sees it. You are about to review the events of the past twelve hours, and you need the Holy Spirit’s help to see them clearly — without self-deception, without exaggeration, without the distortions that pride and fear introduce.
This step is brief — a simple prayer: “Lord, let me see this day through your eyes.” But it is essential. Without it, the review becomes self-analysis rather than prayer. You are not examining yourself by your own light. You are asking God to examine you by His.
3. Review the Day
This is the heart of the Examen. Walk through your day, hour by hour, from morning to now. Do not judge yet. Simply look.
What happened? Where were you? Who did you meet? What did you do? What did you feel?
Pay particular attention to two kinds of moments.
Moments of consolation — times when you felt drawn toward God, toward love, toward peace, toward generosity. A conversation that left you feeling connected. A decision that felt right. A moment of joy that seemed to come from beyond yourself. These are signs of God’s presence — evidence that His grace was at work in your day.
Moments of desolation — times when you felt pulled away from God, toward selfishness, anxiety, anger, or despair. A conversation that left you agitated. A decision that felt wrong. A moment of meanness or resentment. These are signs of the counter-movement — the resistance to grace that every human being experiences.
Do not spend too long on any single event. You are taking a panoramic view — scanning the day, noticing the patterns, identifying where the light was and where the shadows fell.
4. Respond
Now respond to what you have seen.
If the review revealed moments of grace — thank God for them. Name them. Acknowledge His presence in them.
If the review revealed sin — acknowledge it. Not with elaborate self-recrimination but with honest, specific repentance. “I was unkind to my colleague. I was dishonest in that conversation. I chose comfort when I should have chosen courage.” Say sorry. Mean it.
If the review revealed patterns — a recurring temptation, a persistent anxiety, a habitual failure — bring them to God. Ask for His help. The Examen is not meant to produce guilt. It is meant to produce awareness — and awareness, brought to God, becomes the starting point for change.
5. Look Forward
End by looking ahead to tomorrow. What do you anticipate? Where might you need God’s grace? Is there a difficult conversation, a temptation you know is coming, a situation that will require courage?
Ask God for the specific graces you will need. “Give me patience in that meeting. Give me honesty in that relationship. Give me courage to do what I know is right.”
Then close with a brief prayer — an Our Father, a Hail Mary, or simply: “Lord, be with me tomorrow as you were with me today.”
Why It Works
The Examen works because it trains a faculty that most people never develop: the ability to notice God in daily life.
Most of us live on autopilot. We move through our days reacting to events, performing tasks, managing responsibilities — and at the end of the day, we cannot remember where God was in any of it. Not because He was absent. Because we were not paying attention.
The Examen trains attention. It teaches you to look for God in the ordinary — in the conversation, the meal, the commute, the frustration, the unexpected kindness. Over weeks and months of practice, you will find that you begin to notice God’s presence during the day, not just during the review. The Examen spills over into the rest of your life, turning the whole day into a kind of prayer.
This is what Ignatius meant by “finding God in all things” — the central motto of Ignatian spirituality. Not that God is only in churches and prayer books. That He is everywhere — in every moment, every encounter, every event. The Examen is the practice that opens your eyes to this reality.
Practical Tips
Do it at the same time every day. Evening is traditional — a review of the day just completed. But some people prefer to do it at lunch (reviewing the morning) or first thing in the morning (reviewing the previous day). The time matters less than the consistency.
Keep it to ten minutes. The Examen is not meant to be a long meditation. It is a quick, focused review. If you find yourself spending thirty minutes, you are overthinking it. Scan. Notice. Respond. Move on.
Do not turn it into a guilt session. The Examen begins with gratitude, not with sin. If you skip the thanksgiving and jump straight to “what did I do wrong,” you have missed the point. God’s grace was at work in your day — more than you know. Start there.
Write it down if that helps. Some people keep an Examen journal — a few lines each evening noting the consolations, the desolations, and the graces they asked for. Over time, the journal reveals patterns you would not otherwise see.
Do not skip it when the day was bad. The Examen is most valuable precisely on the days you least want to do it — the days when you failed, when nothing went right, when God seemed absent. Those are the days that most need the Examen’s light.
The Simplest Spiritual Revolution
The Examen is not dramatic. It does not produce ecstasies or visions. It produces something better: a gradually deepening awareness of God’s presence in the fabric of your ordinary life.
Over time, this awareness changes everything. You become more grateful. More honest with yourself. More attentive to others. More responsive to grace. More aware of the subtle movements — toward God, away from God — that shape your interior life every hour of every day.
Ten minutes. Five steps. Every evening. Ignatius said it was the most important prayer he knew. Five centuries of Jesuits have agreed. Try it for a month and see for yourself.