COURET Jean (Father)
Pontacq, 26 June 1936 - Bétharram, 2 February 2019 (France)
Father Jean Couret, whom we called « Jeannot », passed away on Saturday February 2nd, in the retirement home of Betharram. He was born in Pontacq (15 km away from Betharram), on June 25th 1936.
After studying in the Saint Joseph school of his village, he entered the apostolicate in Betharram, then the seminary of Bel-Sito, in Floirac (Gironde). After his ordination in Bordeaux in 1965, he was named in the community of Cenon (a suburb of Bordeaux), amidst a working-class parish. There he liveda rst self-abasement: becoming a religious-priest in a Church more accessible to the world, dialoguing with this world inhabited by God’s Spirit, according to the intuition of the Concile, which will be concluded on that very year.
For him, a new turning point andself-abasement: he chose to be aworker-priest, a docker in the harbour of Bordeaux, fully inserted in the working-world, while belonging to the pastoral team of Saint-Martial and Saint-Rémi.
A new abasement in the Formanoir housing-estate of Pessac, near Betharramite brothers, and immigrants, and discovering a popular religiosity, for instance with people from Mauritius. He lived an intense commitment there, defending the immigrants’dignity.
Then, a new abasement when he retired at the age of 62, volunteering to strengthen the Betharramite presence in Ivory Coast which was still very frail in 1998 (he will spend six years there, in Adiapodoumé, then in Dabakala).
Back in Béarn, a semi-retirement in Idron enabled him to be rooted in Béarn again. But this was only a short peace, as a stroke caused him serious damage: an abasement in illnessand dependence during 6 years and a half in this Betharram nursing-home. No doubt the impossibility of communicating was for him the biggest trial to bear.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news tothe a icted. H e has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord. (Lc 4, 18-19)
This passage from Saint Luke gives a good idea of the life-orientation of our brother, and of the convictions which animated him in Bordeaux, in his ministry in Ivory Coast, and in Béarn, with this will to make himself close and bring the good news to the people of the periphery who sometimes feel themselves far from the Church. He was that man of the encounter with the immigrants who made him discover – so he said – that difference becomes wealth, and that every race, every culture, is worked up by the same Spirit of God ; there, he lived some commitment with the anti-expulsion nets and the feasts of the ASTI (an association of solidarity with immigrant workers).
He was a messenger of the good news through the radio, by animating weekly broadcast, then information bulletins such as « Tam-Tam and balafon » and « The Garbure » (a dish from Béarn). In all this, he was a religious-priest of the Sacred Heart of Betharram. During the 25th jubilee of his ordination, he told us that his fondness for Betharram was like a family heritage. When he was a puny baby, his mother had laid him on Father’s Garicoït’s grave. He perceived this as an offering gesture, as when he was 11 he entered the apostolic school on the year of the Founder’s canonization.
Like us, he had his defects; his convictions sometimes did not give room to those of others. But for us, who were familiar with him, he was a joyfull brother, admiring and marvelling in front of the world, benevolent, without being at all severe with the people round him.
After the Eucharist, we are going to place him in our cemetary, in front of the Resurrection chapel where his mother had placed him on the Founder’s grave. Today the offering, the offering of his life, is accomplished. Today is accomplished for you this encounter with this God of Love, full of tenderness, whom you witnessed in your life of religious-priest. “O Mary, here he is, welcome him and present him to your Beloved Son”.
Laurent Bacho scj
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