Dear friends, I’m excited that a new video in which I lead the practice of the Daily Examen is premiering this Saturday, January 18, at 1 PM Eastern Standard Time.
If you’re not familiar with the Daily Examen, it’s a traditional practice of reflecting on your day, usually done at the end of the day although you could pray the Examen at any time, just reflecting on the previous 24 hours whenever that might be. Traditionally it was a type of “examination of conscience,” but today we could call it an examination of consciousness. The Daily Examen is especially associated with St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and the creator of the Spiritual Exercises. St. Ignatius encouraged Jesuits and anyone else serious about establishing a deeper intimacy with God to pray the Examen daily.
This video, produced by Contemplative Life for their Transformation365 program, features a step-by-step induction into the Examen, beginning with a recognition that God is Unconditional Love (and loves you unconditionally). From there it offers a series of prompts to invite you to reflect on your day, to recall how God may have felt especially present (or absent) over the course of your day, and to consider how you responded to — or resisted — the movement of the Spirit in your life. The Examen is meant to be a daily practice, and over time it facilitates a deepening sense of intimacy and closeness with God.
I hope you will be able to join the premiere on Facebook, January 18, 2020 at 1 PM — but if you can’t make it then, or are discovering this blog post after the fact, not to worry. The video will be available on Transformation365‘s website so you can access it — and other video prompts for a variety of spiritual practices — there. (Update: now that the premiere has happened, the video is embedded at the top of this post).
Contemplative Life is a website and non-profit organization dedicated to connecting people and communities with transformative practices. The heart of Contemplative Life is its website, a digital hub bringing myriads of practices and communities together under one umbrella. Visit www.contemplativelife.org to find practices of interest and connect with others of like mind. Contemplative life sponsors Transformation365, which is described as “an experiential practice network designed to help cultivate inner awakening through deep and sustained practice. We invite you to go deeper by practicing each day for two weeks. You can connect and collaborate with other practitioners through this site by adding your thoughts, comments, and insights about your practice experience.”
If you are one of my Patreon supporters, you already know that one of my goals as a blogger is to be developing video content. So I am thrilled to have been able to produce this video in cooperation with Contemplative Life and Transformation365. We have at least one more video in the works, so there’s more to come. Stay tuned!
If you’d like to learn more about Contemplative life, check out my interview with its founder, Jeff Genung: Building Contemplative Community Online: An Interview with Jeff Genung.
