The Examen is one of the oldest still-practised forms of evening prayer in the Christian tradition. It comes from Ignatius of Loyola, the sixteenth-century founder of the Jesuits, who taught it as a daily fifteen-minute review of the day — not to grade the day, but to notice where God had been in it.
This is a slow, gentle guide on how to pray the Examen — the five movements, one fully worked evening, and the small ways to start without making the practice feel like one more thing.
Two things are worth saying at the outset, because they sometimes keep Protestant readers at arm’s length from a practice that is, in fact, for all Christians.
First: the Examen pre-dates the Catholic-Protestant split, in spirit if not in its codified form. The practice of evening reflection on the day, asking where did I meet God, where did I miss Him, what is He showing me? is as old as the desert fathers and is woven through the Psalms (Psalm 4: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still). Ignatius formalised it; he did not invent the underlying practice.
Second: the Examen is not theological. It does not require you to hold any belief that distinguishes a Catholic from a Protestant. Believers of every tradition can pray it without compromise. Many Protestant spiritual directors, retreat houses, and devotional writers — Eugene Peterson, Ruth Haley Barton, Pete Greig of 24-7 Prayer — teach it freely. The practice has crossed every line that more contentious practices have not.
That said. The Examen is a slow practice. It is not for the morning when you have ten minutes and a coffee in hand. It is for the end of the day, after the children are asleep, when the house has gone quiet, and there is fifteen minutes available to look back over the day before you sleep.
What the Examen actually is — and how to pray the Examen well
A daily prayer of review. Five movements. Roughly fifteen minutes. Prayed at the end of the day, ideally before bed.
The aim is not productivity. It is noticing. Noticing where God has been in the day you just lived. Noticing where you were drawn toward Him and where you were drawn away. Noticing what He might be showing you about tomorrow.
The Examen is sometimes called the daily reflection that changes everything — not because any single evening of it is dramatic, but because over months, the cumulative effect of looking back over each day with God reshapes how you live the next one. You become a person who is aware. Aware of God. Aware of yourself. Aware of the patterns of your own soul and the moments grace breaks in. The Examen, more than almost any other devotional practice, slowly turns a believer into someone who lives an attended life.
The five movements
Ignatius taught five movements. Different teachers number them differently, and some collapse them into four. The version below is the simple five.
Movement 1 — Gratitude
Begin by thanking God for what was good in the day. Specifically. Not thank you for today — thank you for the way the morning light came through the kitchen window. Thank you for the conversation with Anna at lunch. Thank you for the moment of clarity when the work problem made sense. Thank you for the children laughing in the back garden at four.
Three to five specific things, spoken to God as gratitudes. The specificity matters. The first movement of the Examen trains the eye to see — across years, this single movement reshapes how a believer perceives ordinary days.
Movement 2 — Petition for light
A short prayer asking the Spirit to show you the day truly. Not as you would like to remember it, not as your defensiveness would replay it — as it actually was, as God saw it.
Holy Spirit, help me to see today as You saw it.
This is the movement most prone to being rushed past. It matters because the next three movements depend on it. You are about to review the day; the Spirit is the only one who can show it to you accurately. Without this prayer, the review becomes self-evaluation. With it, the review becomes a conversation.
Movement 3 — Review of the day
Walk through the day in your memory. From waking to this moment. Slowly. Not analytically — what did I notice? When you felt close to God, where was that? When you felt distant, where was that? When you felt joy, what was happening? When you felt heaviness, what was happening?
The Examen calls these the consolations and the desolations of the day. Consolations are the moments that drew you toward God — joy, peace, love, a sense of being seen, a moment of clarity. Desolations are the moments that pulled you away — anxiety, irritation, despair, the temptation to retreat into self-protection.
Don’t try to interpret yet. Just notice. That conversation went badly and I felt the bitterness rise. That moment of mercy from the colleague I had been avoiding — that surprised me. That afternoon stretch when I was on the phone scrolling for twenty minutes and felt empty afterward. That time of prayer at lunch that was easier than I expected.
You are walking the day with God, looking together.
What does 1 Corinthians 13 mean? Jonathan Edwards on the love chapter — the marks of true affection, slowly read, for the believer whose love has thinned.
What can we learn from Abraham in the Bible? Spurgeon read slowly — the man who left the city, waited twenty-five years, and was asked for the son. A slow read.
What does Lamentations 3:22-23 mean? Spurgeon’s slow reading of the verse in the middle of the book of weeping — mercies new every morning, for the soul carrying.
What is absolute surrender to God? Andrew Murray’s plain reading of the four words that have been used to guilt women — and what they actually mean on a Tuesday.
What is faith according to the Bible? John Owen’s slow definition — three things, not one — for the Christian whose faith feels thinner than it should.
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