Daily Reading for July 31 • Ignatius of Loyola, 1556
Making the General Examination of Conscience
The First Point is to give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits I have received from Him.
The second is to ask grace to know my sins and rid myself of them.
The third is to ask 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 words, then deeds. . . .
The fourth is to ask pardon of God our Lord for my faults.
The fifth is to resolve, with His Grace, to amend them.
Close with an Our Father.
From “A Method for Making the General Examination of Conscience” by Ignatius of Loyola, quoted in Invitation to Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Anthology, edited by John R. Tyson (Oxford University Press, 1999).