Bl. Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi

Month of Saints - Day 20

Here is another one that you probably have not heard of before - I know I hadn't.

Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi was born in Nigeria in 1903. Before his birth, there had been tensions between the British Royal Niger Company and the native people over an incident involving palm oil (a native staple and the Royal Niger Company's primary export). Many natives were taken hostage, homes were burnt and native property pillaged.  Tansi's father was one of those taken hostage and later released.  He named his son Iwene, meaning 'let malice not kill.' 

Tansi's parents were pagans and poor farmers. They sent their son to a Catholic mission school with the intention of getting him a better education so to bring the family out of poverty and ensure that they could not be taken advantage of by the foreigners again. Michael automatically became a Catholic by being enrolled and taught at the school, and he was baptized in 1913 with the Christian name of Michael. Upon graduating, he became a teacher and taught 1919-1925. He entered the seminary in 1925.

At that time, there was little enthusiasm for Blacks becoming priests in Nigeria. The Bishop, who was Irish, saw that the natives, even after conversion, were still steeped in paganism.  Tansi also received opposition from his family, who had hoped that he would go into business and help them rise out of poverty. Michael, however, heard the call of the God he had learned about in the missionary school and persevered. 

At that time in Nigeria, most parish priests were foreign missionaries who were unwilling to live in the same poverty conditions that native Nigerians endured. As Black priests became more common they often followed the lifestyle of the foreign missionaries. When Michael became a parish priest, he refused to live in this fashion. He built his own home out of traditional materials, ate poorer food than the local people ate and went by bicycle or walked most places - even in tropical rain storms. His lifestyle shocked and amazed the Nigerian Catholics, who were not accustomed to this kind of priest. He became very popular and loved by his parishioners.

While serving in his last parish, in his own hometown of Aguleri from 1949-1950, Michael began to become attracted to the religious life and was asking about becoming a monk. At that time there were no monasteries established in Nigeria, and the bishop was interested in the idea of sending some candidates to a monastery in Europe who would become monks in Europe and later would return to Nigeria to start up the first Nigerian monastery. Michael and others were selected for this project. At the monastery he joined the novitiate and took his vows, later becoming a full monk, taking the name Cyprian after the Roman martyr. Despite fears of being treated with racial prejudice, he was fully accepted by the other monks. He was found not to be very intelligent or educated and had trouble memorizing the psalms which the monks sang every morning at 2am after getting out of bed, and would make up words as he sang along.

He never returned to Nigeria.  Upon his death in 1964, he was buried at the monastery in England, but his body was later moved to Nigeria. His feast day is January 20.

I suggest you visit Wikipedia for the full story as I have limited space to tell it here.