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Examination of Conscience – my personal journey

I am not a praying person by nature and it would take me a lot of effort to be as disciplined as required by CLC in doing the above mentioned exercise. Given the fact that this form of prayer yields a lot of information about oneself is a strong motivating force.

From Fr John Hardon SJ …

It is characteristic of God and His angels, when they act upon the soul, to give true happiness and spiritual joy and to banish all the sadness and disturbances which are caused by the enemy.

It is characteristic of the evil one to fight against such happiness and consolation by proposing fallacious reasonings, subtleties, and continual deceptions (Rules for Discernment of Spirits, II, 1).

What are we to conclude from this? That the more zealous we are in trying to please God, the more He will give us a deep interior peace of soul. We should suspect as a temptation from the evil one, when we find ourselves worried or anxious or disturbed, no matter how pious the source of the worry or anxiety may be.

The key to applying this principle is that, before God, I honestly want to do His will even though through weakness, I may fail to live up to my resolutions.

One basic virtue on which we should daily examine ourselves is peace of soul. We should ask ourselves, “Have I given in to worry or anxiety?” “Have I allowed myself to get discouraged?” A good practice is to pronounce the name, “Jesus,” when we find ourselves getting despondent, or say some short aspiration like, “My Jesus, I trust in you,” whenever we become dejected over something.

After hearing what Sr Susay has to say and share on the examen, it is appealing to me. It’s not too difficult to spend some time in self reflection as I do lots of time day-dreaming. I discover that God calls me everyday to make a choice, every moment of my being, to make a choice of pro-God or pro-Peter. The subtle reminder to spend time in prayer pops up now and then .. giving me an indication that He is ever present.