Eugene continues to describe the prayers offered which led to his healing
All who witnessed it shed tears and could not refrain from joining in this exercise of charity and truly filial piety.
And why should I refrain from adding a detail that increases the merit of what they did? We were in the month of March, at the time when the rigour of the cold most makes itself felt; dear children, would that you could read my heart as I write these lines!!! Well, so that the work of mercy that they wanted to do for me should not interfere with their studies, they rose before the dawn and betook themselves at early morning in spite of the frost to the church where each day they assisted at the Sacrifice which was offered in their name at the cost of their little savings destined for their little pleasures. In the evening, when they came out of school, they gathered again in the church of the Madeleine to make together novenas that became quasi-public. Ah! It is truly fitting that there was talk throughout the town of such praiseworthy conduct, and that for those who in this way earned the approval of all honest folk there should arise the sincerest esteem.
But this first reward will be, I confidently hope, but the prelude of one more lasting that the Lord, the just rewarder of virtue, keeps for them in heaven.
Finally, the Lord having yielded to the prayers of this band of youth, I was soon able to go in person to thank God at the foot of those same altars where he had been invoked on my behalf with so much fervour.
Diary of the Aix Christian Youth Congregation ,
May 1814, O.W. XVI