The Prayer of Examen is a daily prayer model from Ignatian spirituality. The idea is to take a moment at the end of each day to meditate on the slice of life you’ve just lived—to take time to notice that which otherwise might slip you by. Here we are turning our attention toward the entire previous year, but you can adapt the reflections to suit whatever chunk of time you are considering. Bear in mind that the whole of this exercise is prayer, not just the bits in italics.
Breathing
Take several deep breaths slowly.
Notice the way your chest expands.
Seek to notice the presence of God among you.
Thanksgiving
Where did you find love and support?
Where did you find or behold courage?
What small gifts crossed your path?
Living God, for these things we give thanks.
Petition
As we turn our attention to a more thorough review of the year, take a moment and ask that God would shed light upon this time as you revisit it.
Review
Where has joy encountered you?
What has troubled you? What are you grieving?
What has challenged you?
Where have you noticed God’s presence? Where has God seemed absent?
Response
Living God, we ask that you would hold our joy and our pain with us, that you would hear our cries of mourning, and that we would be held in the warmth of your love.
A Look Ahead
What will we carry with us from this year?
What will we leave behind?
With what spirit will we enter next year?
Closing
Our father, who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name
thy kingdom come
thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven
give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil
for thine is the kingdom
the power and the glory, forever
amen.
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If you’d like the slides that we included in the 12/27 liturgy to accompany the Examen, you can find those here.