Eugene continues to express his joy, “I cannot help being touched when I see the eagerness of the poor to hear my voice” and explains his approach to preaching. He is imitating St. Paul and wishes to preach the Gospel as simply as possible so as to place its message within reach of everyone:
but what fills my cup of joy to overflowing is that this abundant concourse is clear proof that there are still in our town a considerable number of true Israelites who have not bent the knee to Baal, Christians who still love their religion, love to receive instruction, want to practise it, for it is quite evident that only love of your holy Law brings you to our presence,
since in imitation of the Apostle we have not come to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the elevated discourses of a human eloquence and wisdom, no, we have not used human wisdom as we talked, but the simple word of God stripped of every ornament, placed so far as in us lay within the grasp of the simplest.
Continue, my brothers, to listen to it with faith and attention.
Instruction at the Madeleine, preached in Provencal, on the fourth Sunday of Lent
O.W. XV n. 115