What Is the Daily Examen? A Beginner's Guide

The Daily Examen is a form of prayer developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the sixteenth century. It is short — fifteen minutes at most — and it is designed to be done every day. Over time, it does something unusual: it changes not just your prayer life, but your perception.

Most spiritual practices work on the interior life in isolation. You sit, you read, you pray, you stand up and return to your day. The Examen does something different. It brings your day into the practice. It teaches you to see your ordinary life as the place where God is most active.

The Basic Structure

The Examen has five traditional movements, though in practice they flow together naturally:

1. Gratitude. Begin by noticing the gifts of the day. Not generically — specifically. What happened today that you received? A conversation, a meal, a moment of clarity, something that made you laugh. The practice of specific gratitude trains attention.

2. Ask for light. Ask God to help you see clearly what you're about to review. This is a brief prayer for perception — not for a good feeling, but for accuracy.

3. Review. Walk back through your day, roughly in order. Where did you notice God's presence? Where did you feel drawn toward him? Where did you turn away, distract yourself, act from fear or pride? You are not cataloguing failures. You are learning to read your own life.

4. Sorrow and resolve. For the moments of resistance or failure, bring them honestly before God. Not with excessive guilt, but with clarity. And let that clarity produce a small, specific intention: how will you respond differently tomorrow?

5. Hope. End by looking forward. What does tomorrow hold? Ask for what you need.

Why It Works

Most men have a vague sense that they should be more prayerful, more present, more attentive to God. The problem is that the spiritual life feels abstract. It takes place in a dedicated time — Sunday morning, a quiet moment — and then ordinary life resumes.

The Examen breaks that division. Because you practise it daily, and because it reviews the actual content of your day, it begins to build a habit of noticing — not just in prayer, but in the moments as they happen. You begin to notice when you're pulled away from what matters. You begin to see where God was in a conversation that felt ordinary.

Ignatius called this consolation and desolation — the movements of the soul toward God and away from him that are happening constantly in your daily experience. The Examen makes them visible.

Common Mistakes

Going too fast. The Examen is not a checklist. Give each movement a minute or two. Let your attention settle.

Focusing only on failures. The review step includes both — where you sensed God and where you resisted him. Men in particular often turn the Examen into self-criticism. That is not the point. The point is to see clearly, not to feel bad.

Treating it as optional. The power of the Examen comes from daily practice. Doing it three times a week produces much less than doing it every day. The daily rhythm is the practice.

How Pistis Uses the Examen

The Examen is one of the four steps in the Pistis formation loop. After reading Scripture and reflecting on a formation prompt, you perform the Examen — a brief, guided review of the previous day. Then you pray in your own words.

The four steps together form a complete daily practice that addresses Scripture, formation, self-knowledge, and prayer. The loop is designed to be done before your apps unlock in the morning, which means it happens before the pull of the day begins.

You do not need a formal knowledge of Ignatian spirituality to use the Examen. You need a willingness to look at your own day honestly, and a belief that God is actually present in it.

That belief is what the practice grows.