Monday's Practice - The Daily Examen - Advent 2016

Ignatius Loyola wrote The Spiritual Exercises in order that Jesuits (and the rest of the church) could learn practices that he found helpful for his own spiritual growth and maturity. Ignatius believed these practices to be gifts of God available to all. I don't believe that Ignatius was the only person to have developed a practice like this, and there have been others that have been similar since. However, I thought I would start with his as a way to create some reflection.

Reflection is the idea behind the Daily Examen. One of the few rules that Ignatius had for the Jesuits was to practice the Examen twice daily (at noon and the end of the day). His Examen consists of five steps that are basically prayed in order, the entire process lasting from 15-20 minutes:

1. Become aware of God's presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.

The point to stress, is that this is really more about attitude than method. It is asking God for help in looking at our day from the Divine perspective. We might play the day like a film looking to see where we felt God's presence; where we had some short comings. Were there specific moments when we moved toward God by our actions and non-actions? Where there points where we moved away from God by not acting, as well as acting? Are there specific things to ask for guidance about? How might we cooperate with God's Kingdom tomorrow?

If you do a google search on Ignatius Examen you will find lots of sites to help you with the process.

The Examen is a way to be thoughtful and  reflective about the events of the day. This coming Friday's Film has a great line. John Kitchin mentions that everyday as he left work he asked himself, "How much of what I've done today benefited me spiritually? How much of what I've done today benefited me financially?" These questions don't have to necessarily be exclusive, but they do tend to point to one's motives. When you watch the movie, look to see how asking those questions helped to change his life.

Blessed Be,

Joel