THROWN INTO THE SEA

HENRI COURSOL 

           

        

92 years young and free - February 2, 2015

                       

On my arrival in Choluteca in 1954, I found that I was so submerged by holy water and baptisms that I had the impression of having been thrown into the sea. The waiting queues to have the children baptized had no end. That enormous appetite for baptisms could be explained by the fact that in that «very catholic» region in the south of Honduras, there had been no priest for a long period of time. And so, we rolled our sleeves up and began baptizing with all our strength.     

I nearly drown myself in the sacraments. It was the mission in reverse: instead of evangelizing first and then go to the sacraments, the respect for the local culture required from us that we begun with the sacraments and finish with the gospel.  Well… why not, after all?   

Southern Honduras did not attract foreigners, because the region, besides being very poor, was ravaged with malaria. In a letter sent to Edgar Larochelle, who was the general Superior of the SME at the time, I described to him our situation in these words: «Here, we are in a dump abandoned by God and by humans. We work non-stop, we are streaming with sweat, the mosquitoes are famished; malaria and amoeba can strike us at any moment. And to cap it all, many people do not want to have anything with priests! » The Superior answered back: « We sent you there actually because it is the place where you are most needed. Courage! We will send you some reinforcements.» In fact, the SME sent a lot of people to Honduras. We were never alone.        

Before our arrival, it was a rare thing for a local priest to take the risk to make rounds in the region. The adventure was not a sinecure. Added to the testing travels riding a donkey in the mountains and under the ardor of an oppressing climate, that priest was at the mercy of little bigwigs who dictated others everywhere. The baptisms he had to perform, the Latin masses he had to «say» and the «responsos» he had to pray for the dead were limitless. The poor man earned his living in that way, sadly and harshly.          

All alone, overworked and often treated as mercenaries, those priests broke down one after the other without leaving any trace of virtue, so that when we were seen wearing our white cassocks, we were mistaken for new exploiters. In the most important centers, we were looked at with mistrust, even at times with contempt, only because we were priests. Yet, among the peasants, things were different: very early, we together became friends for life.

Our mission took root especially among the small farmers of the country side, among the poorest very often and among the more isolated, because they were more open. And gradually, our mission transformed itself into a gigantic movement for the uplifting of those depressed areas.  Only one watchword, which became my gospel, motivated all my activities: “To those who are in need, extend a helping hand; to those who are squashed, put them on their feet.” Rapidly that gospel transformed itself into social commitment and into a real fight for a humane development embracing health, education, culture, spirituality, economics, and politics, in one word: the whole of human life.          

We hung our fate for that, and we have been fought for that quite often…  Myself, according to a foolproof Episcopal source, I had the privilege to be “charitably” labeled as nothing less than a «communist» by some big authority of the holy Church living at thousands light years from the reality of a country like Honduras… I fortunately had sinned by upholding by my whole life, and with strength and love, that Justice along with Liberation  were also Word of God.  What a joy!   I was not alone on that black list, since a certain Jesus of Nazareth surely appeared on it, as well as those of my most courageous confreres who also toiled away on the same path as mine.                               

This vision of the mission in terms of integral human and liberating development, I shared it profoundly with Marcel Gérin,     our bishop; it forged between us bonds of indestructible friendship.

Placing things in perspective, and even looking at them with a critical eye, I am happy to affirm that, thanks to our multiple social organizations and our many Christian communities, a great number of the people in southern Honduras lifted up their heads. I am aware that the task is far from being finished and that, at some levels, it may have to be done again, but I sincerely believe that during our time, we did what we had to do.

« Thanks to God and to the Virgin», as we say in Honduras, and thanks especially to the people of the communities of Choluteca and Valle Departments (also from Tegucigalpa), who have been the first architects of that success, I can say with satisfaction: mission accomplished!        

Edited by Eloy Roy

February 2, 2015

Translated from the French by Jacques Bourdages