Particular
Examen
Use
the Preamble.
This method of prayer is best used together within the
"Awareness Exercise"
. Essentially it consists in focusing the Awareness
Exercise on a particular point for a period of time
in order to work systematically at achieving some particular
goal in our spiritual growth. We might be trying to
transform some habitual attitude which we have identified
in ourselves, or to change our typical way of reacting
to a given set of circumstances. Deep changes in our
long-standing attitudes, values, emotional reactions
or patterns of thought and behavior take time. That
is why we single out some particular goal and work at
it for whatever period of time is required to achieve
it.
This is not just an exercise in psychological self-help,
although it includes human efforts according to sound
psychological principles. It is essentially a prayer
and an effort to dispose ourselves to receive the grace
of God and to cooperate with it. For this reason the
Particular Examen is best made within and as a part
of that method of prayer we have called "The
Awareness Exercise" .
To use the Particular Examen, we make these additions
to the Awareness Exercise:
1. Each morning, when we rise, we remind ourselves what
it is we want to work on and ask God's help to do it
well this day.
2. When we make the Awareness
Exercise, we specifically and explicitly include
the particular point we are working on when we review
the day to ask what has been happening, and when we
take our stance toward what has been and what will be.
For example, we try to identify the times we have fallen
into a pattern of thought or behavior which we are trying
to change, or how many times we have succeeded in adopting
a stance we are trying to make habitual. Then we declare
to God our gratitude or our regret with regard to these
occasions, and we recommit ourselves to the goal we
are focusing on.
3. Before going to sleep, we recall again what it is
we are working to acquire, and we rededicate ourselves
to it.
