Basing himself on the retreat meditations of Fr. Nepveau, during his Spiritual Exercises retreat, Eugene considers what the early life of Jesus teaches him. In his daily Gospel prayer Eugene wanted always to imitate the “examples and virtues of Jesus Christ.” This meditation gives a good example of his approach:
After forming in a general way the intention of following and imitating the Saviour, I must see in detail in what precisely he wants me to imitate him… That is what we shall see in the examples of his hidden life. For, although there is no mystery at all in the Saviour’s life that cannot furnish us with examples of every virtue, it seems even so that there is in each mystery a particular virtue that shines out.
Humility is visible in particular in the incarnation,
poverty in his birth,
mortification in the circumcision,
abandonment to his Father’s will in the flight into Egypt,
obedience in the dependence he had on Mary and Joseph during the 30 years of his hidden life.
There are then these five virtues opposed to the five principal obstacles that impede the reestablishment of God’s glory and his Reign in man’s heart, namely,
pride or the excessive desire for glory,
avarice or the insatiable desire for riches,
sensuality or the disordered love of pleasure,
ambition or over-eagerness for advancement and grandeur,
finally the spirit of independence which results in one always wanting to follow one’s own will;
these are then the five virtues directly opposed to those five vices which will be the object of the following meditations.
Retreat Journal, December 1814, O.W. XV n.130