What is the Examen?

What is the Examen? 
St. Ignatius of Loyola created the Examen to be a very short prayer that can be prayed at any time. In the Examen, we review our recent past to find God and his blessings in our daily life. Ignatius would say that the Examen should be the most important moment of our day, because this moment affects every other moment.

How Do I Pray the Examen?
There are five simple steps to the Examen:

• Relish the moments that went well and all of the gifts you have today.
• Request that the Spirit lead you through your review of the day.
• Review your day.
• Repent of any mistakes or failures.
• Resolve, in concrete ways, to live tomorrow well.

Benefits
The Examen brings our God’s presence into our day. It helps:

• unite you even closer to God;
• reveal God’s perspective on your everyday life;
• stir you to praise God for the countless gifts that have popped up in your day, and to find God’s presence in those gifts;
• give you an opportunity to recognize and apologize for your faults, and to grieve your failures and hurts and receive healing from them;
• bring insight into what is really going on beneath the surface of your thoughts, words, and actions—into the very source of your motivations;
• you discern how to handle the trickier aspects of your life, to know what gifts you need from God to do the right thing tomorrow, and to ask God for those gifts explicitly.

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The Greek philosopher Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."