The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [40]
On its frail, supple branches were young buds attending eagerly the spring which was at hand. While my eye rested on them the thought came to me suddenly, with all the strength and novelty of a revelation, that these little buds in their innocence and meekness followed a rule, a law of which I as yet knew nothing.
“That law came from God,” wrote Dulles, “a Person of Whom I had no previous intuition.”
That brings us to the second reason for the importance of noticing, like Avery Dulles’s awareness of that tree. Noticing helps you realize that your life is already suffused with the presence of God. Once you begin to look around and allow yourself to take a chance to believe in God, you will easily see God at work in your life.
At this point you might be saying, “That’s fine. But how do I do this?” Here’s where the way of Ignatius can help.
THE EXAMEN
In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius includes a prayer designed to enable believers to find God in their lives. (Actually, it’s more accurate to say that he popularized the prayer, since versions of it had been around for some time.) He called it the “examination of conscience.” And he used to say that it was so important that even if Jesuits neglected all other forms of prayer in their day, they should never neglect this one.
The prayer goes by many names today. The Jesuit George Aschenbrenner, a spiritual director and writer, popularized the term “examination of consciousness” or “consciousness examination,” since he feels that the English word “conscience” has “narrow moralistic overtones” that push people to focus primarily on their sinfulness. (In other languages, like Spanish and Italian, that single word expresses both meanings: conscience and consciousness.) Many Jesuits refer to the prayer by its original Spanish name—the examen. English-speaking Jesuits pronounce it “examine.” Which is not such a bad way of thinking about it. Because what you’re doing is examining your day for signs of God’s presence.
The examen is a simple prayer with five easy steps.
It can be done once a day (usually before going to bed) or twice (usually during midday and evening). Here’s how it goes:
As with every prayer, you prepare by asking for God’s grace. It’s a way of consciously inviting God to be with you and reminding yourself that you are in God’s presence.
The traditional first step is gratitude. You recall the good things that happened to you during the day, and you give thanks for any “benefits,” as Ignatius wrote. This is an essential step. As David Fleming, S.J., an expert on spirituality, recently wrote me in a letter, “Ignatius saw the examen as prayer, not just focused on the person, but as directed to God. That’s why the examen begins with thanks to God, establishing the focus. It’s not simply self-examination or dreamy introspection, it is a way of prayer, a way of being with God.”
Ignatius meant “benefits” in the broadest possible sense. Obvious things would include any good news, a tender moment with a spouse, finishing an important project at work. But also less-obvious things: the surprising sight of sunlight on the pavement in the middle of a bleak midwinter’s day, the taste of a ham-and-cheese sandwich you had for lunch, satisfaction at the end of a tiring day spent caring for your children.
For Ignatius many things—no matter how seemingly inconsequential—are occasions for gratitude. You recall them and you “relish” or “savor” them, as he would say.
Savoring is an antidote to our increasingly rushed lives. We live in a busy world, with an emphasis on speed, efficiency, and productivity, and we often find ourselves hurriedly moving on to the next task at hand. Life becomes an endless series of tasks, and our day becomes a compendium of to-do lists. We become “human doings” instead of “human beings.”
Savoring slows us down. In the examen we don’t recall an important experience simply to add it to a list of things that we’ve seen or done; rather, we savor it as if it were a satisfying meal. We pause to enjoy what has happened. It’s a deepening