We must seek only to instruct the faithful, to be attentive to the needs of the greater part of the audience,
and we must not be content to break the bread of the Word of God for them, but also to chew it for them.
1818 Rule Part 1, Chapter 3, §1
As the missions were always held in the cold winter months, Sevrin, author of two books on the parish missions in France, writes about the challenges offered by mission preaching in an icy church:
Morning instruction. Intended for the people – for those who toiled a full and long day for a meagre salary, and many of whom, enslaved at an early age to the workshop or to the work in the fields, had hardly frequented school and catechism – this instruction was informal, simple and cordial and mixed with anecdotes, a true catechism without saying it, and which usually concerned the essential truths of religion. It had to offer something attractive, to convince these poor people to get up earlier than usual, and to come to a freezing church in winter to hear the explanation of the Credo.
SEVRIN, E., Les missions religieuses en France sous
la restauration (1815-1830), I, p. 166.
The packed churches at the parish missions attested that the preaching of Eugene and the Oblates was indeed attractive enough to get the people to leave their warm beds in order to listen.