The following questions are intended for the daily examination.The following questions are intended for the daily examination.
Remote Preparation
Was I watchful over my senses yesterday?
Was I interiorly recollected?
Did I keep silence?
Did I observe modesty?
Did I avoid sin and the occasions of sin?
Did I recite ejaculatory prayers?
Did I make my spiritual exercises conscientiously?
Proximate Preparation
Did I choose a subject for meditation?
Did I recall it while retiring and again after rising?
Was I attentive during the reading of the subject?
Immediate Preparation
Did I, and how did I, perform the acts of the immediate preparation? the act of faith? the act of adoration? the act of humility? the act of petition?
Was I penetrated with the thought of the presence of God?
Considerations
Did I apply myself seriously to them?
Did I make them in the light of faith?
Did I make the application to myself?
Affections
Did I make many and fervent affections?
Resolutions
Did I observe the resolution of my last meditation?
If not, what was the cause of my unfaithfulness?
Was my resolution precise, practical, and firm?
Conclusion
Did I, and how did I, perform the act of thanksgiving? the act of contrition?
Did I choose a spiritual bouquet?
Did I give some attention to the colloquy?
Various Difficulties
Did I give way to discouragement on account of the wanderings of my mind and the hardness of my heart, instead of humbling myself, arming myself with patience, confidently having recourse to God and the Most Holy Virgin, and endeavoring to continue my meditation, if necessary, with the aid of a book?
Were not dissipation and faults against silence the cause of my distractions in meditation?
Did I experience aridity?
Was it not caused by venial sins deliberately committed? by natural and disorderly affections? by immortification and infidelities to the Rule?
After I found out the culpable causes of the faults committed during meditation, did I impose a penance upon myself?
If I was drowsy, did I take means to overcome drowsiness?
Did I make the account of the last meditation?
- taken from Catechism of Mental Prayer, by Father Joseph Simler