How to pray the Daily Examen

The Daily Examen is a prayerful review of your day in God's presence. It comes from the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola and helps you notice where God was present, how you responded, and what grace you need next. It is not a performance review, a productivity exercise, or a search for a perfectly spiritual day.

The Jesuit Conference's guide to the Ignatian Examen presents five steps. The wording below stays close to that structure while giving you a simple way to begin.

1. Place yourself in God's presence and give thanks. Become aware that God is with you before you start analyzing the day. Name one or two gifts you received: a person, a meal, useful work, needed rest, an unexpected kindness, or the simple fact that you were carried through the day. Gratitude is not pretending everything went well. It is recognizing that difficulty does not erase every gift.

2. Ask for light. Ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to see your day truthfully and mercifully. Memory alone can turn a review into self-justification or self-criticism. This step makes the review a prayer: you are asking to see with God's help, not relying only on your first interpretation.

3. Review the day. Move through the day from waking until now. Recall specific moments, conversations, choices, and feelings. Where did you experience peace, energy, resistance, gratitude, fear, or discouragement? Do not force an answer or explain everything. Begin by noticing what was there.

4. Notice how you responded. Look at what you thought, said, and did. Where did you move toward God, love, honesty, and service? Where did you turn away? Give thanks for grace received, ask forgiveness for failures, and bring the most important moment to God without hiding or exaggerating it.

5. Look toward tomorrow. Consider the day ahead. Ask where you will need God's help and name one concrete grace: patience in a conversation, courage for a decision, restraint in a familiar temptation, or attention to someone you might overlook. Conclude with your own prayer or the Our Father.

The Jesuit Conference describes the Examen as a flexible prayer. Its purpose matters more than completing it within a promised number of minutes. A short prayer can be real prayer, but there is no need to hurry when a moment deserves longer attention.

The Daily Examen and an examination of conscience before Confession overlap, but they have different immediate purposes. The Examen brings the whole day before God. An examination of conscience prepares a person to recognize and confess sins in the Sacrament of Penance. If your Examen makes you aware of serious sin, it may lead you toward Confession; it does not replace the sacrament.

If the practice feels unfamiliar, begin gently. Use the same five steps for several days and notice which one you tend to skip. The aim is not to produce a perfect reflection. It is to become more honest, grateful, and responsive to God in the life you are already living.