Eugene continues his sermon by presenting the indifference of the post-Revolution French to God and invites “you poor of Jesus Christ” in the Madeleine to come to the instructions where they will be enlightened.
Question the milling crowd that jostles in the public squares, ask anyone what he is doing, where he is going, what is he engaged in doing, etc.
The one will answer that a process on the issue of which depends his entire fortune summons him to the bench to solicit, etc.
Another will say that he is going to negotiate an important matter, etc.
Another will say that he is going to negotiate his presence on the farm whither he is heading with all speed.
Another again will say that he is going over in his mind some plans concerning fortune, interests or ambition that will assure, etc.
Perhaps you will discover some who will be compelled to say that they are hastening their steps towards the object of their infamous passions.
So come, whoever you are, come assiduously to some instructions that must undeceive you on the score of many a fatal error, enlighten you on what are your only true interests. Not a single one, no, not one will be able to reply that his mind is filled with the eternal truths, that these are the subject of his meditations and researches. Desolatione desolata est terra, etc. (Jer. 12:11). O blindness! O folly! However, the days pass, the years roll by, death has its day!
Then illusion vanishes, but there is no longer time to make good the loss of a life entirely devoted in the arduous search for passing vanities that must be left behind. It is too late to amass an incorruptible treasure of glory and happiness for eternity.
Come especially you poor of Jesus Christ and may God grant that I may make my voice heard in the four quarters of the world to reawaken so many foolish people from the fatal indolence that brings them to their doom.
Notes for the first instruction in the Church of the Madeleine
O.W. XV n. 114