Bishop Michael celebrated Mass for Mission Sunday at St Brigid’s Church, Liscannor. During the Mass soil from the grave of Fr Tommie Cusack who was martyred as a missionary in Korea in 1950 was welcomed and blessed along with a new tapestry commemorating his life and legacy.
“The thing that strikes me most about Tommie Cusack’s story is that he didn’t have to go but he did, he could have gone home but he didn’t. He stayed convinced that this is what God had called him to do – convinced that sharing the life-giving message and meaning of Jesus was more important than his own comforts and eventually than his own life.” – Bishop Michael
On Mission Sunday 2025, let us remember one of our own Father Tommie Cusack. In Ballycotton near Liscannor in Co Clare in the Diocese of Kilfenora, Tommie Cusack was born on 23rd of October 1910. His parents Michael Cusack and Delia Heaphy were both primary school teachers. They were to go on to have a family of six – four boys and two girls. A few days after he was born, Tommie was baptised in Liscannor Church. His early education was in Ballycotton National School.
Afterwards, he went to study at St Mary’s College, in Galway. It was during this time that Tommie began to imagine himself as a priest and in particular a priest working on the foreign missions. He set his mind on joining the Columban Fathers and working in the Far East. In September 1928 – Tommie went to Dalgan Park in Shrule to start studying for the Priesthood. Six years later on 21st of December 1934, he was ordained at the Dalgan Park College in Shurle. He celebrated his First Mass in St Brigid’s Church, Liscannor the following day on 22nd of December 2034. Tommie had his heart set on being sent to China – but the political situation there in the middle nineteen thirties meant that he was sent to Korea instead.
Tommie arrived in Korea in 1935 – no plane travel in those days. It was a six week trip – boat from Cobh to New York, Train from New York to San Francisco, Boat from San Francisco to Japan. Boat from Japan to Pusan Korea and train from Pusan to Mokpo. Immediately on arrival in Mokpo, Tommie and the other priests set up a parish there and began to learn the language. By all accounts Tommie was a likable, energetic, enthusiastic ambassador for Jesus as he moved from one pastoral appointment to another. The years of the Second World War were fiercely difficult with frequent run ins with the Japanese and little contact with home.
After the war internal divisions and political tension brough about a divided Korea. Catholics were looked on with suspicion and the numbers of non-Korean priests there were reduced considerably. Tommie returned back to Ireland once in 1947 and then returned to Korea to become Parish Priest in Mokpo. The political situation was deteriorating. In 1950 it reached boiling point, war broke out between North and South Korea – the advice was for Fr Tommie and the priests to leave. The priests that chose to stay and share the lot of their people faced hunger, torture and imprisonment.
Tommie and other priests were arrested in August 1950 and interrogated. They were to truly share in that suffering of the just that we hear about today in the First Reading from the Prophet Isaiah. They were eventually transferred to Taejon Prison where on the night of September 24th 1950 Fr Tommie and the priests with him along with thousands of people were massacred by the communist troops – their bodies dumped into three deep wells.
The thing that strikes me most about Tommie’s story is that he didn’t have to go but he did, he could have gone home but he didn’t. He stayed convinced that this is what God had called him to do – convinced that sharing the life-giving message and meaning of Jesus was more important than his own comforts and eventually than his own life. The words of today’s Gospel rang true in his life – Fr Tommie served, and he gave his life in that service of God and others. (Bishop Michael)