Caput XXIV. Ante somnum conscientia excutienda, et dolendum de peccatis.
The Evening Examination of Conscience
Before sleep, the recluse is urged to review the day's words, deeds, and feelings for any offense against the Lord, and to offer sighs and compunction as an evening sacrifice to the Bridegroom.
Once you have gone to bed, entrust your chastity to God, and then, armed with the sign of the cross, turn over in your mind how you lived that day — whether in word, in deed, or in feeling you offended the eyes of your Lord; whether you were more frivolous, more idle, more negligent than you should have been; whether in food you were more undisciplined, in drink more dissolute, exceeding the bounds of necessity. If you detect that any of these has crept in on you, sigh, strike your breast, and with this evening sacrifice may the Bridegroom receive you, reconciled, back to himself.
Read the original Latin
Prostrata lectulo pudicitiam tuam commenda Deo, et sic signo crucis armata revolve animo quomodo die illo vixisti, si verbo, si opere, si affectu Domini tui oculos offendisti; si levior, si otiosior, si negligentior debito fuisti; si plus cibo crudior, potu dissolutior metas necessitatis excessisti. Si subreptum tibi aliquid horum deprehendis, suspira, pectus tunde; et hoc sacrificio vespertino tuo reconciliatam sponso sponsus excipiat.
De institutione inclusarum (A Rule of Life for a Recluse) companion
A rule only lives if you keep it daily
Chosen Portion gives your new rule its anchor: one free devotional portion every day.
Aelred built his sister's day around fixed times of prayer and meditation; Chosen Portion supplies the fixed daily portion that makes a modern rule of life keepable.
- Anchor your rule with a fixed 10-minute daily portion
- Practice Aelred's threefold meditation with guided daily prompts
- Review and adjust your one-page rule after 30 days of tracked practice