LHOUERROU Eugène (Father)

Thank you, a thousand thanks, to all those who still remember me in their thoughts, in their prayers.

I apologize wholeheartedly to those parents, brothers, Christian and non-Christian friends who have had to put up with me; my character, my faults, my timidity, my egocentricity, my limits, my weaknesses, my faults, my omissions. Despite this, and through inadequacies and failures, I have always striven, Lord, to follow you on the path to which you have called me, trying to put the best of myself in the exercise of the mission wherever the authorities have sent me.

All those who have shared my work and my apostolic suffering, my life as a witness to Christ in a 95% Buddhist and animist environment, all those of Christian minority (Catholics and Protestants), Buddhists of tradition and conviction, all I entrust to the heart of the Lord who is victorious over death. I entrust myself, as a faithful son, to the maternal heart of Our Lady Mary to whom her Son dying on the cross said: “Woman, here is your son … your sons”.
With a heart full of thanksgiving, I say to you all of different races and religions; “Goodbye with my eyes on God.

Message le by Fr. Lhouerrou scj
and read during the mass of his funeral 

Homily for the funeral at Bétharram 31 October 2019 ;
Lectures: 1 Cor. 1, 26-31. Lk. 4, 16-21

The Word of God was chosen according to what we knew about the life of Father Lhouerrou. He was born in Montory, far from the main roads, a little apart like Garicoïts in Ibarre.

Of modest origin, like many of us, he remained very attached to his roots, subscribed to the “Mirror of Soule”, issued by the language of Béarn and the territory of Soule! He lived modestly, without money, discreetly knowing how to stay out of the limelight. At the time of his death, we were already pondering the gospel of the next day, on the mustard seed and the leaven mixed into the dough. The comment made by Pope Francis corresponds perfectly to our father Lhouerrou: “if we want to be men and women of hope, we must be poor, poor, attached to nothing.”

Poor but with eyes turned away from earthly things. Hope is humble, it is a virtue that is practised every day. Behind this commentary we can see the face of Father Lhouerrou. It was an illustration of what our Founder Saint Michael Garicoïts recommends to us, “Expeditus” freed from all ties. The man who does not cling to anything, who stands apart from everything, is really free“,”stripped above all of ourselves.” A simple but not a weak man who could argue and sometimes even have the last word, which could upset his colleagues. These days I read his analysis of Buddhism which seems to have a lot of lucidity! Discretion, sobriety, humility, it is this life- style, this grace that we can ask the Lord for each one of us; to accompany a deceased to his last earthly dwelling is not a simple rite but a means of knowing how to welcome in this life what the Lord suggests to us by the life of the deceased.

His way of living simply meant also to have written in black and white that he did not wish any medical struggle at the end of life. On the day of his death, a text agreed at the Vatican between Christians, Jews and Muslims was written as a declaration at the end of life. This declaration recommends using all means of palliative care that makes medicine recover its mission to care for and never abandon a patient. The staff of this house provided this service wonderfully and I think unanimously we can thank the members of the association Saint Joseph and the staff of our house who provide this service to our elders with sensitivity and professionalism!

But through the choice of the Gospel, I would particularly like to stress the 56 years of life spent in Thailand from 1952 to 2008. If Father asked to return to France it was not to leave this country because he didn’t like it, but because he did not want to be dependent on the young religious of this young vicariate in Thailand. Here too lies a real self-effacement.

From the age of 30 to 86, he was a missionary in Thailand; he believed he was sent by the Spirit of the Lord through the congregation to bring the Good News to the poor, to announce freedom to prisoners. 1952 was a difficult year for the mission; driven out of China, Bétharram began to settle in northern Thailand. He was charged with going to join those who had experienced this expulsion from China. This freedom of prisoners which the Gospel speaks about, he lived alongside those cured of leprosy, that is to say, lepers who had followed medical treatment to no longer put others at risk of contamination. Even cured, they remained prisoners of the mistrust of those around them because the scars were there. It was necessary to teach these healed lepers a job first, as the Father said to make them aware of their human dignity and then to give them hope through work so that they were no longer in need of help but could reintegrate into their village through a trade, through carving wood, basketry, weaving, or raising chickens or pigs. This was the goal of the Hua Na Ken settlement near Chomthong. Bétharram had sent Father Lhouerrou in this initiative well before the encyclical of Pope Paul VI “Populorum Progressio” on the development of peoples. When I was a young seminarist, I marveled at this Betharramite among lepers who reminded me of the man we considered a hero in humanity, Raoul Follereau.

In this extraordinary October of mission that is ending today, it is therefore a precious message that Fr. Lhouerrou gives us, for those times when we speak so much of vulnerable communities. He lived this edge of existence with the lepers whom he helped to get back on their feet. For the gospel, it is the whole man who is to be saved so that he is more in conformity with the image of God, what God wants for him. This stage of human development was very necessary in this Buddhist milieu where he lived, impervious to the Gospel. This is the encouragement that the Superior General, Fr. Joseph Mirande, gave during his first canonical visit in 1960 to the missionaries. He had been amazed by a little girl from Laos who was retaliating against Buddhist parents who thought that the gospel statements about God were absurd: “I believe the father because he is good.”

Of course these are just a few words about the 56 years of Fr Eugene’s life. This morning we give thanks to the Lord because one day he chose this young person from Montory to be a religious Bétharram missionary. He was not spared difficulties, having had to live as a child after World War I and as young man in World War II, then through the challenges of life at the beginnings of Bétharram in Thailand. May Our Lady of Bétharram now extend to him the saving and merciful branch of her Son Jesus. Let us each go back to living the mission that our baptism gives us wherever we find ourselves. 

Laurent Bacho scj