Examination and Seven-Day Plan

An examination of conscience should lead to truth, contrition, mercy, and a concrete amendment of life. It should not become endless monitoring of involuntary feelings. Begin by asking what you knowingly entertained, desired, said, omitted, or did.

Distinguish temptation from consent. A painful comparison that you rejected is not the same as choosing to rehearse contempt. Distinguish emotion from object: strong sadness does not by itself prove grave sin. Distinguish uncertainty from certainty: do not invent motives or mortal guilt.

When scrupulosity is present, follow the stable guidance of one prudent confessor rather than repeatedly re-examining settled matters.

Before God

• Have I treated God’s providence as though another person’s blessing proved His neglect of me?
• Have I refused thanksgiving, prayer, duty, or worship because I resented what another received?
• Have I envied another person’s virtue, vocation, conversion, charism, or apostolic fruit?
• Have I sought spiritual gifts chiefly for status or praise?

In thought and desire

• Whose good repeatedly causes sorrow or agitation?
• Have I deliberately wished that person failure, humiliation, loss, or grave harm?
• Have I rehearsed faults, imagined exposure, or enjoyed fantasies of reversal?
• Have I reduced my own dignity to a rank, body, income, relationship, achievement, or metric?

In speech

• Have I minimized a real good, withheld deserved praise, or redirected attention to myself?
• Have I committed rash judgment, detraction, calumny, insinuation, gossip, mockery, or selective disclosure?
• Have I used prayer requests, concern, or theological correction as a cover for damaging reputation?
• Have I failed to correct a falsehood I helped spread?

In action and omission

• Have I excluded, obstructed, sabotaged, copied, stolen credit, hidden information, or manipulated an outcome?
• Have I withdrawn ordinary kindness because another person prospered?
• Have I neglected my duties while monitoring another person’s life?
• Have I spent, dieted, worked, posted, or competed in ways governed by comparison rather than prudence?
• Have I failed to seek justice through proper means because gossip or retaliation felt easier?

Confess envy plainly and concretely without telling a long story designed to justify it. Name the kind and number as best you reasonably can, especially external sins and grave wishes. For example: “I deliberately entertained envy toward a coworker several times, repeated damaging gossip twice, and wished serious harm once.”

Do not confess another person’s faults as if they were your sins. Brief context may help the confessor understand the act, but the focus remains your consent, speech, conduct, and duties.

Contrition includes sorrow for offending God and injuring charity. A firm purpose of amendment does not require certainty that temptation will never return. It requires a real intention to resist, avoid chosen occasions where prudent, and make repair.

Morning

1. Make the Sign of the Cross.
2. Thank God for one grace, one relationship, one capacity, and one duty.
3. Pray for the person most likely to trigger comparison.
4. Name the day’s next faithful task.

Evening

1. Place yourself in God’s presence.
2. Give thanks for concrete gifts received and witnessed.
3. Review one comparison episode without exaggeration.
4. Confess any consent or harm; receive mercy.
5. Choose repair or prevention for tomorrow.
6. End with an Our Father, emphasizing forgiveness and daily bread.

Do not measure growth by never noticing difference. Look for greater freedom: faster recognition, less rehearsal, fewer damaging words, more truthful praise, less compulsive checking, steadier duty, clearer justice, and quicker repair.

Review the plan after seven days. Keep one daily practice, one weekly practice, and one sacramental or accountable practice. Examples include a nightly gratitude examen, a weekly digital Sabbath, monthly Confession, or regular spiritual direction.

If the plan reveals severe depression, trauma, obsessive comparison, disordered eating, threats, or functional impairment, add qualified professional care.