Father Martin Cushnan was a devoted missionary priest who left “an indelible mark” on the Indian province of Bangalore, his funeral heard.
The Carrickfergus man spent 67 years in India and was the last of Irish confreres sent by the Redemptorist community in the 1950s.
At his funeral in Clonard in west Belfast, which was closely followed in India, Fr Edward Joseph, provincial superior of Bangalore, said he was a “truly remarkable man”.
“His life was a tapestry woven with threads of love, service and unwavering faith, a man who was a loving friend, a zealous missionary, and a visionary leader,” he said.
A past pupil of St Nicholas’ PS in Carrickfergus and St Malachy’s College, Belfast, Martin entered the Redemptorist House of Studies in Galway and was just 20 when he set sail for India, at that time still in its first years of independence.
Ordained in 1958, he also spent time in Goa, Hyderabad and Tenali, travelling by bicycle or moped between communities and giving hope to the marginalised through his ministries in education and health.
“He saw the poverty, the struggles and the faces etched with hardship and his heart ached for them. It wasn’t enough for him to preach from afar, he craved connection,” Fr Joseph said.
“He was the embodiment of integrity, humility and unwavering faith. He lived a life of prayer, simplicity.
“His legacy is etched in hearts of countless lives he touched in India.”
He saw the poverty, the struggles and the faces etched with hardship and his heart ached for them. It wasn’t enough for him to preach from afar, he craved connection
— Fr Edward Joseph
In a homily, Fr Con Casey also spoke of Fr Martin’s “colour and vigour, his humour and tenacity” and how his work in India was supported by family at home.
“One way to think of Martin’s life, to think of his long passage through time, from 1934 to 2024, is to think of it as a long prayer, which he said by deed, by doing things, as much as by word,” he said.
“It was a colourful, vibrant, humorous, savvy, ironic prayer.”
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During visits home to Co Antrim, Fr Martin always made himself available to help in pastoral work in his native parish.
He died at the Northern Ireland Hospice on April 3, just a few weeks before his 90th birthday, and is survived and sadly missed by his nieces and nephews and wider family circle.