Missionary who never returned home during 68 years - Br. Kusy

By Fr. Peter Kuchar, SDB

Fatumaca, Timor Leste, 1 September 2017 -- Salesian Brother Jose Kusy (1909-2002) passed away just few weeks before the independence of Timor Leste in May 2002. Slovakian by origin, Br. Jose was a member of the second missionary expedition to Timor Leste in 1946. After his departure from Slovakia to Portugal (1934) and during his 56 years of missionary life in Timor he never returned home as it was a tradition in that first generations of Salesian missionaries before the Second World War.

The Biography published first in Slovakian (2013 - Don Bosco Media) and finally this year in Portuguese (Timor Leste, Dili - 2017) and we expect finally also an English version, so our 'Forgotten Saint Brother' may be known all around the EAO region and stir interest in the Salesian Brother and Missionary vocation. This book is a fruit of long research in Slovakia, in Portugal and also of three weeks long stay in Timor Leste.

We can learn a remarkable missionary spirituality from the life story of Br. Kusy. As for the first generation of the Timor Leste Salesians Brother Jose was an exceptional model and Saint! This small booklet contains the memoirs of senior Salesians, his relatives, extract from many testimonials as well from some letters of Br. Kusy.

Deeply a man of God, living a simple and very deep union with God he was a 'Fac totum' in the best sense of the word - his mission in Fuiloro and Fatumaca stretched from agriculture, through workshop, assistance, cooking up to the construction a special 'Grotto of Mary' on the way to Fatumaca 'Mother House' of Timor Leste Salesians.

We wish to have soon an English version of this precioius testimony and hope that the missionaries of this 148th missionary expedition (Rome - Torino - Becchi, September 1-24) will also benefit from a missinoary life witness of Brother Jose Kusy!

Related article:

• AustraLasia 4463: Two new history book in Timor Leste
• The Portuguese version of his biography is available on the Boscolink:

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