Eugene ended the Ignatian Exercises in time for Christmas – a liturgical season that his diary seems to show as being primarily celebrated with the members of his Youth Congregation. Indeed, the Congregation was growing and this youth ministry was what took up the bulk of his time and energy. The numbers were growing, so he decided to form a new section of the Congregation for young men over 18 years of age. Many of these were university students, and some lived in the house of the Missionaries in Aix.
As the number of congregants has considerably increased, among those who present themselves there are many older ones. The Rev. Director has decided therefore to form them into a separate section which as well as the general meetings for the whole Congregation will be summoned to a special meeting on the first and fifteenth of each month.
Here now are the articles of this amendment to the regulation: Congregants who have reached the age of eighteen will form a special section called the premier section. As well as all the general meetings and exercises of whatever kind of the Congregation at which they will have the right to assist like all the others, they will have a special meeting on the first and fifteenth of each month at which no one other than those of their age and above may assist…
These meetings will have a two-fold aim. They will serve to bring closer together the members who should make them up, to facilitate them with the means to know each other better and to form ties between them through a holy friendship, secondly they will be useful even under the heading of piety as they will always begin with a short conference that the Rev. Director will give on some topic of religion. If, because of the absence of the Rev. Director or for any other reason, the conference does not take place, its place will be taken by a half-hour’s reading in some pious book.
Diary of the Aix Christian Youth Congregation, 20 February 1815, O.W. XVI