The Examination of Conscience

A gaze of faith resting on one's life before God

To examine one's conscience is not to analyse oneself the way one would examine a file: it is to stand before God and let Him enlighten one's life. The light of the examen does not come from introspection but from the Word of God, a “light for our path”^[6], and from the Holy Spirit who “will convince the world of sin” (Jn 16:8). The one who examines is therefore never alone with himself: he prays. This is what radically distinguishes the Christian examen from an autonomous moral review — it begins by lifting one's eyes, not by lowering them upon oneself.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” — Psalm 139 (138), 23-24^[7]

This verse sets the right tone of every examen: it is God who searches, man who lets himself be searched. The examen is not a tribunal where the soul judges itself with anguish, but a trusting surrender of oneself to the One who sees the heart. Its aim is positive: not to shut oneself up in shame, but to recognize the love received, to take the measure of one's failings, and to set out again.

Examination of conscience and moral conscience: a necessary distinction

The examination of conscience presupposes moral conscience, but it is not reducible to it. Moral conscience is, according to the Catechism, “a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act”^[8] — it is the faculty which, before the act, discerns the good to be done and the evil to be avoided, and which, after the act, bears witness. The examination of conscience, for its part, is the exercise by which that witness is brought into play: one returns to the acts performed in order to confront them with the truth.

In other words, moral conscience is a permanent reality of the person; the examen is a regular practice that puts it to work. Without examen, even the best-formed conscience remains mute, for want of being questioned. That is why Saint Augustine, quoted by the Catechism, does not merely say “listen to your conscience”, but “return” to it, “question it” — a verb of action, which describes the examen exactly. The theology of conscience is developed in the article What is moral conscience?; the present article concerns the act of examining it.

The two main forms: daily examen and preparatory examen

Tradition has fixed two uses of the examen, which must be carefully distinguished lest the first be impoverished by being reduced to the second.

The frequent mistake consists in knowing only the second form — the examen “for going to confession” — and ignoring the first. Yet the daily examen is the mother practice: it is the habit of looking at oneself every evening before God that makes the examen for confession easy, truthful and free of anguish. A Christian who examines himself only on the eve of a quarterly confession will always struggle to remember and to discern; one who makes his examen every evening arrives at the confessional with a clear heart. The present article deals chiefly with the daily examen, referring for the preparatory examen to the articles dedicated to confession.

“Let us examine our ways”: the call of Scripture

The examination of conscience is not a late spiritual invention: it is commanded by Scripture itself. The book of Lamentations, at the heart of Jerusalem's mourning, gives its clearest formula, in which the examen is inseparable from conversion:

“Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD! Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven.” — Lamentations 3:40-41^[9]

Psalm 4, the evening prayer par excellence, makes the examen a reclining act, intimate, accomplished in silence and peace: “Commune with your own hearts on your beds, and be silent” (Ps 4:5)^[10]. That is exactly the posture of the daily examen that Ignatius and Francis de Sales would recommend centuries later. Psalm 139 (138), already quoted, asks God Himself to search the heart. The biblical examen is therefore never a withdrawal into self: it is a dialogue in which one prays God to bring light.

“Let everyone examine themselves”: the examen before Communion

The New Testament explicitly binds the examen to the reception of the sacraments. Before communicating in the body and blood of Christ, Saint Paul demands an examen, on pain of eating and drinking unworthily:

“Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.” — Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 11:28-29^[11]

The same Apostle extends the demand to the whole life of faith: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves” (2 Cor 13:5)^[12]. The examen is thus posited as a condition of truth of the Christian life: one does not approach Christ without having looked at oneself before Him. This Pauline root grounds both the preparatory examen for confession and the daily review; it explains why tradition will always bind the examen closely to Eucharistic adoration and Communion.

The “return to the heart” according to Saint Augustine

It is Saint Augustine who gave the examen its most profound spiritual formula: the “return to the heart” (redire ad cor). For Augustine, man loses himself by scattering himself outward; he finds himself again by re-entering within himself, where God awaits him. The Catechism takes up this teaching in the paragraph devoted to the interiority of conscience:

“Return to your conscience, question it… Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.” — Saint Augustine, Commentary on the First Epistle of John, tractate 8, 9, quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1779^[13]

Augustine does not propose a mere moral inspection: he invites us to go down under the gaze of God, the interior “witness”. The examen then becomes an encounter: one does not look at oneself alone, one looks at oneself “under the eyes of God”. This Augustinian interiority would run through all monastic spirituality and make the examen not a moment of tension, but the place of a presence.

The philosophers' evening examen

Before Christianity, Greco-Roman wisdom already knew the practice of the evening examen. The Golden Verses attributed to the school of Pythagoras prescribed never falling asleep without having gone over one's day: “Do not let sweet sleep enter your eyes before you have examined each of the day's actions: wherein have I sinned? What have I done? What duty have I omitted?”^[14]. The Stoic Seneca, heir of the Roman philosopher Quintus Sextius, describes his own practice with a precision that astonishingly anticipates the Christian examen:

“Every day I plead my cause before myself. When the light has been taken away and my wife, who knows my habit, has fallen silent, I go over my whole day, I measure my deeds and words again… What evil of yours have you healed today? What vice have you resisted? In what respect are you better?” — Seneca, On Anger (De ira), III, 36, 1-2^[15]

This page of Seneca is one of the oldest detailed testimonies of a methodical daily examen. The Christian tradition did not ignore it: it received and transfigured it.

From pagan wisdom to Christian conversion

The ancient examen and the Christian examen share the same form — reviewing one's day in the evening — but differ radically in their soul. The following table compares the two to show what faith added.

The decisive difference lies in the first and the last word. The Christian examen begins by giving thanks — it looks first at God's gifts, not at man's failings — and it ends not on a clenching of the will but on a petition for grace. Where the Stoic relies on himself, the Christian relies on God. That is why the Fathers could take up the ancient practice without forcibly Christianizing it: they needed only to shift its centre of gravity, from the self toward God.

The Fathers and the monks: guarding the heart

From the earliest centuries, the desert Fathers and the monastic tradition made the examen a central instrument of “guarding the heart” (custodia cordis). Monks are invited to watch ceaselessly over the flow of their thoughts (logismoi), to discern them, to detect those that come from the enemy, and to render an account of them each day. Cassian, transmitting to the West the wisdom of the Egyptian monks, recommends this scrutinizing vigilance of the heart as the condition of all interior purity^[16]. The Rule of Saint Benedict integrates this vigilance into the prayer of Compline and the silence of the night: the day closes upon a return upon oneself before God, in peace.

From this tradition was born the habit, transmitted down to us, of placing the examen in the evening, at the end of the day, like a seal set upon the elapsed hours before handing them over to God for the night.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola: the examen at the heart of the Exercises

It is Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) who gave the examen its most precise and most universally diffused form. In his Spiritual Exercises, the examen is not an appendix: it is a fundamental daily exercise, which Jesuits and retreatants practise even on days when they can do nothing else. Ignatius distinguishes two of them: the particular examen and the general examen.

The particular examen: fighting one dominant fault

The particular examen (Spiritual Exercises, nos. 24-31) aims at a single fault or a single virtue to be acquired, so as to concentrate the spiritual combat instead of dispersing it. Ignatius regulates its course with military precision, in three times of the day^[17]. Upon waking, one resolves to guard oneself against the fault in question. After the midday meal, one asks God for the grace to remember how many times one has fallen, then one counts them. In the evening, after supper, one repeats this reckoning. Ignatius even recommends noting down the number of faults, day after day, in order to compare one period with another and to verify one's progress — the famous little line of dots in his examen notebook.

This method, seemingly accountant-like, in reality aims at a concrete awareness: one only fights well what one has clearly identified and measured. The particular examen remains today one of the most effective means of working on a precise point of conversion.

The general examen and its five points

The general examen (Spiritual Exercises, no. 43) embraces the whole day and unfolds in five points, which have become the classic structure of the examination of conscience in the Church:

“The first Point is to give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received. The second, to ask grace to know my sins and to cast them out. The third, to demand an account of my soul from the hour of rising to the present examen, hour by hour or period by period, first as to thoughts, then as to words, then as to deeds. The fourth, to beg pardon of God our Lord for my faults. The fifth, to purpose amendment with His grace.” — Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, no. 43^[18]

The order is anything but indifferent. One begins with thanksgiving — hence with God and His gifts — and not with the list of faults; one asks for light before looking, for man alone does not see his sins; one then reviews “thoughts, words, deeds”; and one ends with pardon asked and resolution taken “with His grace”. This sequence protects the examen from its two opposite corruptions: discouragement (for it opens with gratitude) and presumption (for it closes upon grace, not upon effort alone).

In Ignatius, the general examen is also inseparable from the discernment of spirits: to review one's day is to detect movements of consolation and desolation, hence to learn where God draws and where the enemy pulls. On this point, see What is the discernment of spirits?.

Saint Francis de Sales: the evening exercise

Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622) popularized the examen among the laity in his masterpiece, the Introduction to the Devout Life (1609), intended not for monks but for Christians engaged in the world. In the chapter “On the evening exercise and the examination of conscience”, he makes it a simple and gentle habit, within everyone's reach^[19]. In the evening, after thanking God for having kept us, we go over the conduct of our day, humble ourselves for our failings without being troubled, ask pardon for them, and fall asleep in trust.

The Salesian genius was to have taken the drama out of the examen: it should be peaceful, brief, free of anguish, like the gaze of a child rendering an account to a loving father. This gentleness would become the mark of the French school of spirituality.

The Curé of Ars and the modern tradition

The saints of the following centuries faithfully kept the evening examen. Saint John Mary Vianney, the Curé of Ars (1786-1859), gives a striking example of it, in which reviewing the day becomes communion with the Passion of Christ:

“How consoling it is to suffer under the eyes of God, and to be able to say to oneself in the evening during one's examen: 'Come, my soul, today you have had two or three hours of resemblance to Jesus Christ. You have been scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified with Him!'” — Saint John Mary Vianney, Thoughts^[20]

Here the examen serves not only to count faults: it serves to recognize God's work in the day, even in trials. That is the positive note of the Christian examen, too often forgotten: it is also about seeing where one has loved, suffered, served — where Christ has lived in us.

The five steps of the daily examen

The most proven method remains that of the Ignatian five points, which can be made in a few minutes every evening. The following table presents them in their practical form, with what each one involves.

Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, has given this exercise its full timeliness again, stressing its brevity and simplicity:

“The daily examen is so important: before ending the day, stop a moment. What happened? […] Do it, just for two minutes, but it will do you good, I assure you.” — Pope Francis, general audience of 30 November 2022^[21]

Two minutes suffice: the examen is not a chore of introspection, but a daily rendezvous with God.

The particular examen on one dominant fault

Beside the general examen, it is precious to take up the method of the particular examen: choosing, for a season of one's life, a single point of combat — an impatience, a habitual lie, a lack of charity, a neglect of prayer — and watching it especially, noting one's progress. Concentrating one's effort on a single front in this way avoids dispersion and yields results that the general examen, more diffuse, does not obtain alone. It is the classic way to uproot a dominant fault rather than lamenting every evening over the same falls without ever attacking them at the root.

When, and for how long?

Tradition favours the evening, at the end of the day, just before going to sleep — as Psalm 4 and the whole monastic tradition do. Some add a briefer examen at midday, in line with the Ignatian particular examen. What matters is not the length but fidelity: a short but daily examen is worth infinitely more than a long occasional one. As Pope Francis reminds us, two minutes suffice to begin. The regularity of the rendezvous matters more than its length: it is habit that forms the interior gaze.

The examen in preparation for confession

When it prepares the sacrament of penance, the examen takes on a particular note: it aims at recognizing the sins to be confessed, for an integral confession. The Council of Trent asks of penitents a diligent examen of their conscience before accusing themselves^[22]. The Catechism specifies the light under which to conduct it:

“The reception of this sacrament ought to be prepared for by an examination of conscience made in the light of the Word of God. The passages best suited to this can be found in the Decalogue and in the moral catechesis of the Gospels and the apostolic Letters.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1454^[23]

This examen must not, however, be anxious or finicky: it is made “in the light of the Word of God”, not out of worried introspection. The detail of preparation for the sacrament — how to examine oneself, how to accuse oneself, how to express contrition — is developed in How to make a good confession? and Confession, to which the reader is referred. For the quality of the sorrow that must accompany this avowal, see How to grow in contrition.

The examen, a school of the discernment of spirits

In Ignatius, the examen is not only a record of faults: it is a school of discernment. By reviewing one's day, one learns to detect interior movements — what gave peace, joy, impulse toward God (consolation) and what left trouble, withdrawal, discouragement (desolation) — and to recognize where they come from. Pope Francis himself set his teaching on the daily examen within a catechesis on discernment^[24]. Practised in this way, the examen becomes the daily laboratory in which the art of discerning God's will is formed. This dimension is developed in What is the discernment of spirits?.

The role of spiritual direction

The examen gains in accuracy when it is enlightened by a spiritual guide. Alone, the examen risks falling short: one over-accuses oneself over trifles while remaining blind to what matters. A spiritual director helps to name what truly counts, to distinguish fault from mere scruple, and to choose the right point for the particular examen. Regularly reviewing one's life before a guide prolongs and corrects the personal examen. On this means of growth, see How to grow in spiritual direction.

Scrupulosity: examining without peace

The best-known danger of the examen is scrupulosity: the anxious soul that examines itself endlessly, sees sin everywhere, never finds peace, and turns an exercise of love into an anguish machine. Francis de Sales, a great director of scrupulous souls, answered it with gentleness and trust, recommending not to linger over dissecting one's interior states:

“You always spend too much consideration and examen trying to know where your dryness comes from. […] You must not be so curious as to want to know where the diversity of the states of your life proceeds from; you must submit to all that God ordains, and stop there.” — Saint Francis de Sales, letter to Mrs de la Fléchère, Annecy, 5 August 1611^[25]

The true examen leads to peace, never to obsession. If it locks one up in worry, it is because it has turned away from God toward the self: one must then shorten it, simplify it, and place it back under the gaze of a confessor or director.

The examen that looks at self instead of God

The second pitfall is subtler: making the examen a face-to-face with oneself instead of a face-to-face with God. One then scrutinizes one's moral performance as one would consult a dashboard, in a logic of perfectionism or, conversely, of complacency. But the Christian examen makes sense only under the gaze of God: it is He who searches the heart (Ps 139), He the “witness” of Augustine. As soon as the self replaces God, the examen becomes either narcissistic or despairing. The first Ignatian point — beginning with thanksgiving — is precisely the safeguard against this drift: it turns one's gaze at once toward the Giver.

The routine or purely moralizing examen

The third pitfall is wear: the examen reduced to a mechanical list of faults recited without heart, or to a dry moralism that counts only failings and forgets love. A living examen always includes gratitude (where did God do me good today), the review of the movements of the heart (where was I drawn, where repelled), and a concrete step for tomorrow. Without that, it degenerates into moral bookkeeping, foreign to the joy of the Gospel. The examen is a prayer: it lives by relationship, not by quota.

The daily examen finds an unexpected summit in the spirituality of the Divine Will. For the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947), reviewing one's day consists not first in counting one's faults, but in seeking God's Will in each elapsed hour, in order to unite oneself to it and to make reparation where it was lacking. The cross and the light of God, she says, render the soul “transparent”, to the point of making it detect its slightest faults:

“The cross, by its light, gives the soul facets as varied as they are splendid. […] Since it renders the soul transparent, it enables it to detect its smallest faults and its slightest imperfections.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 2, 22 July 1899^[26]

In this perspective, the examen becomes a review of the day in the Divine Will: no longer only “where did I sin?”, but “where did God's Will reign in me, and where did I refuse it?”. The practice of the “rounds” in the Divine Will extends this review by travelling through all creation and all history in order to recognize and love God's action there. See What does making the rounds in the Divine Will mean?. Thus understood, the examen does not lock the soul up in its faults: it opens it to the holiness to which God calls it.

• What is moral conscience? — the faculty that the examen puts to work: nature, formation and the obligation to follow one's conscience.
• Confession — the sacrament toward which the preparatory examen leads.
• How to make a good confession? — the practical preparation for the sacrament of penance, examen included.
• How to grow in contrition — the quality of sorrow that must accompany the examen and the avowal.
• What is the discernment of spirits? — the art of recognizing interior movements, of which the examen is the daily school.
• How to grow in spiritual direction — the accompaniment that enlightens and corrects the personal examen.
• Eucharistic adoration — prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, a privileged place to make one's examen under the gaze of Christ.