A Saint for Our Times
‘Who is Father Tansi?’, asks Cardinal Francis Arinze in the preface to his 2015 book Total Response: Personal Memories of Blessed Iwene Tansi, before going on to describe him as ‘a man never settling down to half-measures, dissimulation, pride or love of convenience, but always self-mortified and ready to put his whole heart and person into what he was doing’. On our pilgrimage to Rome last week, we had the privilege of hearing the cardinal speak to us about this man, a remarkably effective, greatly esteemed Nigerian priest who became a monk of my community of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in 1950, and was beatified by St John Paul II in 1998. You can listen to Cardinal Arinze’s talk here. You may also be interested in this homily about him, preached at Gethsemani in 2022.
