Eugene wrote about his Good Friday experience seven years after the event. During this time he had studied in the seminary, been ordained and had done 3 years of ministry. The memory of the event was still so powerful for him – and he expresses the heart of the experience in the terminology of Augustine.
Why say more? Could I ever express what I experienced then? Just the memory of it fills my heart with a sweet satisfaction. So I had looked for happiness outside of God, and outside him I found but affliction and chagrin.
Retreat Journal, December 1814, O.W. XV n.130