17/08/2026
Dear Christ Church, Fr. Bryan has often spoken to us about the prayer of “examen,” from St. Ignatius of Loyola. Here is a beautiful guide to lead you through an examen. The prayer is versatile; it is even possible to apply the examen prayer to a year-in-review or a relationship entering a new season. If you try this prayer this week, please feel welcome to comment below about your experience so that we may learn from and encourage each other.
Midday Meditation: Prayer of Examen
First, take a moment to settle into the support of whatever is holding you. Let it be a tangible experience of the One who is holding you. Feel that support, and let yourself be held by Love.
Now, take some time (alongside Love) to look back at the last 24 hours. What moments come to mind, moments that were beautiful or difficult, that felt light and lovely or messy and heavy? Notice what it was like to be in those moments. How did your soul respond in the midst of them? In Ignatius’s categories, where did you experience “consolation”—a deeper connectedness with God and your own true self, living into shalom and all it was meant for? And where did you experience “desolation”—the sense that you moved away from or against those things? Perhaps you felt particularly disconnected, and it had you turning to ways of coping that didn’t really “help”—only leading you deeper into shame or numbness or disconnection. Consider those moments.
Where did you “miss” God? What do you see as you look at the same situation with new eyes? Might there be ways that not only the moments of consolation might be gift, but those ones you are naming that feel desolate and disconnected—if only that they make space for connectedness even in the naming?
What do you find yourself wanting to do or say in response to both the moments of consolation and the moments of desolation? Is there joy welling up that you’d want to express? Is there fear, or a lingering question? Let the conversation unfold. Nothing is off-limits. Let yourself honestly attend to your moments in the Examen, and honestly hold them open in your hands with God, as a place of conversation and connection.
Now, letting go of what has-been, turn toward the next 24 hours. What is your hope for the next day? What do you anticipate, and what do you want to communicate about all of that? Let yourself name it. Perhaps whatever you felt desolation around is a particular place of invitation of you in the next day. How does God respond to it all?
