By Gloria Canama

Gloria Canama, from Tangub City, Misamis Occidental, has been a Columban lay missionary in Pakistan lay missionary in Pakistan for almost 20 years. Fr Thomas O’Hanlon, known to his family as ‘Tommy’, was given the name ‘Tanvir’, ‘Enlightened One’, shortly after his arrival in Pakistan in 1982 by an old man. He died unexpectedly in Lahore on 5 June.

Tanvir was born on 17 October 1945 in Tarbert, County Kerry, Ireland where he grew up and had his initial formation in life with the loving nurturance, guidance and support of his family and the earth community in the area. ‘I was born in rural Ireland so my relationship with nature was very good. I loved to stroll through the fields, mountain bogs and to listen to running water. It was very therapeutic and I learnt so much from nature and her wisdom’, he reflected.

In response to God’s call to be a missionary priest, he joined the Columbans and arrived at St Columban’s Seminary in Ireland in September 1963 and was ordained on 21 December 1969 in his own home community in Tarbert.

Tanvir arrived in the Philippines in October 1970 and spent the first ten years of his missionary journey mostly in a number of parishes in my own home Diocese of Ozamiz in Mindanao. Naming significant experiences in his life, he had this reflection of his missionary journey in the Philippines:

This experience molded me and shaped my future. I joined a church that was journeying with and involved in bringing life to a people by responding to their concrete needs and problems. It identified with the poor and with and through them confronted the evil in society. It enfleshed, embodied Jesus’ words, ‘I have come that they may have life and life in abundance.’ This church was motivated by a faith that our God is a God of history, a God who became flesh, who experienced the messiness of human living and that salvation is also historical and concrete . . . It was here I experienced and learnt that the focus of mission is the coming of God’s kingdom, the reign of truth, justice, freedom, love, peace and joy.

The seed for moving on as missionary was sown during his sharing with a Filipino lay theologian, Karl Gaspar, about the new model of Church, who said to him ‘Maybe we should share this experience with other churches in Asia.’

He arrived in Pakistan April 1982. In his own words, Tanvir said, ‘I joined a Church that was becoming aware of the social dimension of its mission and searching for new ways to reach out and dialogue with Muslims.’ For the 28 years and 2 months before his death, minus the almost five years he spent on reverse mission in Ireland, Tanvir, ‘the inner light’, made flesh his faith, commitment and love of God, the people and the earth community in this ‘Land of the Pure’.

After formal language studies, he worked in Mariamabad with Fr Inayat Bernard. This first assignment was special for him working side by side with a Pakistani pastor while learning and immersing himself more deeply in the culture, the people and the situation they were in. He joined other Columbans in Sheikhupura where Tanvir shone his light on the faith formation of Christian communities, training and building up lay leaders as members of a participatory church, working with justice issues in particular with brick kiln and sanitary workers. The Columban Society asked for a full-time JPIC (Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation) coordinator. Tanvir took the position and made his community base in Shadbagh.

From 2001 to 2005, he was assigned in Ireland after taking sometime for a sabbatical. He also wanted to be near his aging parents. His father Patrick died in November 2001 and his mother Mary died in November 2003. In Ireland, as part of reverse mission, he went to many churches and schools sharing his very rich missionary experiences in Pakistan.

Tanvir came back to Pakistan in November 2006. Reading the signs of the times and experiencing his own ecological conversion, he joined our Columban JPIC team and was our great source of wisdom, strength, inspiration and challenge in our works on ecology. He felt the urgency: ‘Now, now is the time to care for the earth before it’s too late for all of us.’ Nurturing the missionary element in the local Church also attracted him this time. ‘I was called, formed and sent as a missionary. Maybe it is now time to spend time nurturing and passing on the missionary charism to the local church’. And he started . . . yes, just started!

Fr Abid Habib said that Tanvir’s blood type wass ‘JPIC’. Of his passion and commitment to justice, Tanvir told of his experience when he was new to the country. A friend in Lahore took him out for a Pakistani meal. His friend did the ordering, ‘Chicken karaya.’ ‘With or without chilies?’ asked the waiter. ‘No chilies.’ That night, Tanvir reflected on the ‘chicken karaya with no chilies.’ Could you call a meal without chilies a real Pakistani meal? Likewise, could you call a church Christian if it is not involved in the justice apostolate especially when Pope Paul VI stated, ‘We consider working for justice a constitutive element of preaching the gospel.’ Tanvir was chairperson of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Major Superior Leadership Commission of Pakistan for many years and had always been an active member of JPIC since 1982.

The Word becoming flesh was central to his life and spirituality. ‘Emmanuel . . . God-is-with-us, God is with the poor and the oppressed, with the exploited, polluted Earth’. That is where Tanvir enfleshed the Word. During his entire life and missionary journey, Tanvir established and deepened relationships with his own family and with the wider Columban family. Wherever he had been, he made friends for life as many of us present here could attest. In our celebration of his life and mission, let’s take a moment to remember our connections with Tanvir, with Fr Tommy O’Hanlon and the gifts and blessings we received from having known him.

Some links to Tribute to Fr Tanvir and news on his death: