Quotes About Examen

The second step in the examen is asking for the grace to "know my sins," to see where you have turned away from the deepest part of yourself, the part that calls you to God. Where did you act contrary to your better judgment or to God's voice inside you, to the divine spark within?

The fourth step of the examen is asking for forgiveness from God for anything sinful that you've done during the day.

Finally, in the last step of the examen you ask for the grace of God's help during the next day, and you can close with any prayer you like. Ignatius suggests the Our Father.

God says that Moses will see his back as he passed by him. "Thus," Father Kolvenbach wrote, "looking back over the length and breadth of his life the abbot could see for himself the passage of God." The examen helps you see God in retrospect.

Savoring slows us down. In the examen we don't recall an important experience simply to add it to a list of things that we've seen or done; rather, we savor it as if it were a satisfying meal. We pause to enjoy what has happened. It's a deepening of our gratitude to God, revealing the hidden joys of our days. As Anthony de Mello said, "You sanctify whatever you are grateful for." The

Precious Savior, why do I fear your scrutiny? Yours is an examen of love. Still, I am afraid…afraid of what may surface. Even so, I invite you to search me to the depths so that I may know myself—and you—in fuller measure.  Ã¢â'¬â€Amen.

In my own Examen, then, I praydream—prayerfully daydream. I concretely imagine how I might approach the next twenty-four hours if I were to be God's hands and feet and voice.