Your Year in Review (Performing a Yearly "Examen")

As midnight approaches on New Year's Eve, many of us find ourselves caught between two impulses. The first is to charge ahead—to make resolutions, set goals, and map out the coming year with all the optimism we can muster. The second, quieter impulse is to pause and look back, though we often resist this one. After all, who wants to dwell on failures, missed opportunities, or the ways we fell short? Yet what if this backward glance could become something more than regret or nostalgia? What if it could become a prayer?

In the sixteenth century, Ignatius of Loyola developed a simple yet profound practice called the Examen—a way of reviewing one's day in the presence of God. This wasn't meant to be a harsh self-critique or a tallying of sins, but rather what Ignatius called finding God "in all things" (Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, 235). It was a way of noticing: Where did I experience consolation today? Where desolation? Where did grace break through? Where did I resist it?

Tonight, as 2025 draws to a close, I invite you to expand this daily practice into something larger—a yearly Examen. Just as we might review a single day before sleep, we can review an entire year before stepping into the next. This isn't about creating a spiritual report card or drowning in regret. It's about something far more beautiful: recognizing the hidden pattern of grace that has been weaving through your months and seasons, often unnoticed in the rush of living.

 

The Foundation of Gratitude

The daily Examen always begins with gratitude, and so should our yearly review. Before we examine anything else, we pause to thank God for the gift of existence itself—for 365 days of breath, heartbeat, and consciousness. The Psalmist understood this fundamental orientation: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits" (Psalm 103:1-2, NRSV).

But gratitude in the Ignatian sense goes deeper than a generic thankfulness. It means getting specific. What particular gifts did 2025 bring? Perhaps it was a conversation in March that shifted your perspective. Maybe it was the way sunlight fell across your kitchen table on an ordinary Tuesday in July. It might have been a book that found you at exactly the right moment, or a friend who called just when loneliness was becoming unbearable.

Augustine wrote, "God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them" (Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 61). The practice of gratitude empties our hands. It creates space. As you begin this yearly Examen, spend real time here. List the gifts. Name them. Let yourself be surprised by how many there were, hidden in plain sight

 

Seeking Divine Illumination

The second movement of the Examen is to ask for illumination. We cannot see our own lives clearly without divine help. Our vision is too clouded by proximity, by self-deception, by the simple fact that we're inside the story we're trying to read. Jesus himself warned about the logs in our own eyes (Matthew 7:3-5), and the prophet Jeremiah knew that "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, NRSV).

So we ask: "Lord, help me to see this past year as you see it." This is not a request for harsh judgment but for loving clarity. John Chrysostom once observed that God's light doesn't destroy but reveals, like sunrise showing us a landscape we've been stumbling through in darkness (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John). We're asking to see the truth of our year—both its beauty and its brokenness—through eyes of love.

 

Reviewing the Year: Consolation and Desolation

Now comes the heart of the practice: actually walking through the year with God as your companion. Ignatius encouraged people to review their day hour by hour. For a yearly Examen, we might move month by month, or season by season. The goal isn't to remember everything—that would be impossible and probably unbearable. Instead, we're watching for patterns, noticing what surfaces, paying attention to what the Spirit brings to mind.

As you review, you're looking for two primary movements that Ignatius called consolation and desolation. Consolation doesn't simply mean happiness—it refers to those moments when you felt drawn toward God, toward love, toward your truest self. These might have been moments of joy, but they also might have been moments of meaningful struggle, profound grief that broke you open, or challenges that revealed strength you didn't know you had.

Desolation, conversely, marks those times when you felt pulled away from God and from love—toward isolation, despair, or the false self you sometimes wear like armor. These might have been moments of sin in the traditional sense, but they might also have been times of dryness, confusion, or simply going through the motions.

The apostle Paul understood these movements intimately: "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15, NRSV). Yet he also knew consolation: "I have learned to be content with whatever I have... I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:11, 13, NRSV).

As you review your year, resist the urge to judge these movements too quickly. Simply notice them. Where did life flow? Where did it stagnate? When did you feel most alive? When did you feel like you were sleepwalking? What patterns emerge?

 

Dialogue and Metanoia

The fourth movement of the Examen involves response—what Ignatius called "conversing with God" (Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, 54) about what you've noticed. This is where the yearly Examen becomes deeply personal and profoundly healing. You bring your whole year into dialogue with the Divine.

For the moments of consolation, offer thanksgiving. But go beyond simple thanks—ask what these moments reveal about who you're called to be. If you felt most alive when teaching, creating, or serving, what does that tell you about the coming year? If certain relationships consistently brought life and others consistently drained it, what wisdom lies there?

For the moments of desolation, this is the time for what the tradition calls contrition—not self-hatred, but honest sorrow that leads to freedom. The Greek word metanoia, often translated as repentance, literally means a change of mind or heart. It's about turning, reorienting, choosing differently. As John reminds us, "If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9, NRSV).

But here's what makes the Examen moves beyond confession: you're also looking for the grace hidden within the desolation. Thomas Aquinas taught that God can bring good from any evil, and often our failures become our greatest teachers (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, q. 1, a. 3). What did your struggles teach you? How did your weaknesses create space for grace? Where did breaking lead to breakthrough?

 

Looking Forward with Discernment

The traditional daily Examen ends with a resolution for the next day. The yearly Examen naturally leads us to consider the year ahead. But this isn't about New Year's resolutions in the conventional sense—those grand promises we make and break by February. Instead, it's about discernment: Based on what you've seen in your review, how is God inviting you to live differently?

Perhaps you've noticed that hurry was the enemy of your soul this year, consistently pulling you into desolation. Your invitation might be to practices of slowness and presence. Maybe you've seen how fear made you small, keeping you from risks that might have brought life. Your call might be toward courage, even in small daily acts.

The prophet Isaiah offers us a vision for this forward movement: "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:18-19, NRSV). The paradox is perfect: We look back carefully precisely so we can move forward freely. We remember so we can release. We examine so we can embrace what's coming.

 

Practical Guidance for the Practice

How might you actually undertake this yearly Examen? Set aside real time—at least an hour, perhaps two. This isn't something to squeeze in between celebrations. Consider doing it in the afternoon or early evening of New Year's Eve, before the parties begin. Write as you go. There's something powerful about putting pen to paper, making your reflections concrete. You might want to keep what you write, reading it again next year as part of that Examen.

Consider inviting someone else into the practice. Ignatius always emphasized spiritual companionship. Sharing your Examen with a trusted friend, spouse, or spiritual director can bring insights you might miss alone. Be gentle with yourself. Teresa of Ávila wisely noted that "God is not as concerned about our perfection as about our willingness to let ourselves be perfected" (Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle). The Examen isn't about harsh judgment but about honest, loving awareness.

Trust the process. You might not feel profound insights immediately. Sometimes the fruit of the Examen appears days or weeks later, as your subconscious continues to process what you've seen. As this year ends and another begins, the yearly Examen offers us something precious: the chance to see our lives as God sees them—not as random collections of days but as stories of grace unfolding. Every year contains more than we can consciously hold, but nothing is lost to God. Every moment—whether we experienced it as consolation or desolation—has been held in divine love.

The mystical theologian Meister Eckhart wrote, "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough" (The Complete Mystical Works). The yearly Examen teaches us to say a deeper thank you—one that encompasses not just the obvious blessings but the hidden graces, the difficult mercies, the breakings that became openings.

As you stand on the threshold between years, you stand on holy ground. The God who has been faithful through every day of 2025 will be faithful through every day of 2026. The Examen helps us see this faithfulness, trust it, and lean into it as we walk forward into mystery. Tonight, as clocks approach midnight and the world prepares to celebrate, you have the opportunity for a different kind of celebration—a recognition of the sacred story you've been living, mostly without realizing it. Take the time. Do the work. Let yourself be surprised by grace.

The year behind you is not a burden to be shed but a gift to be received, examined, and integrated. The year ahead is not a blank slate but a continuation of the story God is writing with your life. The yearly Examen helps you read both with clearer eyes and a more grateful heart. May your looking back become a blessing. May your looking forward become hope. And may the pause between—this holy moment of Examen—become a prayer that changes everything.