Book Review: Mark Thibodeaux’s Reimagining the Ignatian Examen

Reimagining the Ignatian Examen is not so much a book to read as it is a book to do – and what rich prayer possibilities it offers in the doing!

The Ignatian examen is an ancient prayer practice emerging from Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.  Although it is most strongly associated with Catholicism, the examen has undergone a bit of a popularity renaissance and is now used as a way of praying in several different Christians traditions (including Protestant ones).

As a practice, the examen itself is a daily prayer focused on gratitude and reflecting over the day.  The idea is to, if I may be so reductive, review your day with God.  This review can have several outcomes.  It might lead you to identify God at work during your day, to acknowledge moments of intervention or moments of sin, and to prepare you for seeking God the following day as well.

I have benefited from praying the examen from time to time, so when I had a little extra Amazon money to spend, I purchased Reimagining the Ignatian Examen on a lark.  I thought it might go through ways to spice up the prayer or pray it differently, but what emerged was so much more rich than I expected. 

Written by Mark Thibodeaux, SJ, the book outlines the basic practice of the examen and offers some tips and tricks for getting started—and then jumps into no less than 34 individual examens.  Each is laid out simply, with a simple introductory paragraph to the purpose of the particular examen, then the steps through which one might pray and the questions one might pray over.

The treasure, I have found, is the way in which these examens have invited me to think about God.

In the Present or Absent? examen, Thibodeaux invites us to examine in prayer where we have been present or absent in attention during the day, and what we have missed or gained from God as a result of that attentive posture.   In A Particular Relationship, the examen invites us into considering a person at the forefront of our mind, and prayerfully reflecting on our posture to them, our feelings about them, and how God might be moving us to respond to them.

The book contains examens that invite us into gratitude and celebratory reflection—like Naming the Grace and Who Wore God’s Face Today?—while others (Hidden Inner Truths and My Greatest Fear) invite us to contemplate, alongside God, the painful depths of who we are.  But I have two distinct favorites I revisit over and over.

A Discernment remains one of the best discernment prayers I have ever prayed.  Typically, when trying to discern a godly course of action, I am reduced to the plea “God, tell me what’s best here!”  Alternatively, I review pro and con lists with God, waiting for Him to nudge my shoulder.  But this examen asks you to reflect on your own thoughts and feelings, what might be holding you back from clarity, invites you into what it means to ask that God’s will be done, and reminds you that even if you make a mistake, God can bring good forth from it.

Saving FACE is the second prayer in this book I repeat regularly. FACE is an acronym for Fears, Attachments, Control, Entitlement, and asks us to look at the not-so-great parts of ourselves: the sinful nature that inspires us to act from our idolatry, our selfishness, our worries, and our desire to be gods ourselves.  It is a difficult examen to pray; it is also deeply fruitful, if you are in the right mindset for it.  A lot of times this prayer has jogged me into realizations about my own sinful heart that I can reveal to God for correction.

A lot of people have a dislike for the examen and so-called “rote prayers,” preferring to pray extemporaneously.  But what I like about this book is that it allows both.  The Examen follows a path and a formula, but the different versions here invite your own spontaneous reflection and prayer.  I’ve prayed some of these versions multiple times and somehow never prayed the same prayer once.

If you’re new to the whole concept of the examen, it may be fruitful to simply pray the original at first, and Thibodeaux offers the standard version here as well. But if you’re looking for some ways to go deeper in your prayer life and really think through your relationship with God day-to-day, Thibodeaux’s book provides a wonderful starting map that will serve you well for years to come.