Maui-born religious was an educator, piano teacher director of lay associates
By Patrick Downes Hawaii Catholic Herald
Sister Anne-Marie Tamanaha, a Sister of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, a music teacher and director of the lay Associates of the Sacred Hearts, died Oct. 20 in Honolulu. She was 86 and a religious sister for 64 years.
Funeral services for Sister Anne-Marie are Nov. 10 at St. Patrick Church with viewing at 9 a.m., rosary at 9:30 a.m., eulogy at 10:40 a.m., Mass at 11 a.m. and burial at Hawaiian Memorial Park at 1 p.m.
Sister Anne-Marie was born in Makawao, Maui, on Oct. 29, 1930, to Thomas Yama and Cathryn Maria Tamanaha, the eldest of four children. She attended Waihee Elementary School and Baldwin High School.
Sister Anne-Marie entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in 1951.
In 2013, reflecting on her religious calling on her 60th anniversary of vows, Sister Anne-Marie said she was “inspired by the Sacred Hearts Fathers and encouraged by the St. Francis Xavier Club of St. Ann Church, Waihee” to answer God’s call and entered the congregation.
“The sisters’ life of prayer, perpetual adoration especially, attracted me,” she said. “With a grateful heart, I left home blessed by my parents, family and friends to live, contemplate and proclaim God’s redeeming Love. I thank my God for calling me to a holy consecrated life.”
Sister Anne-Marie earned her bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Dayton, and her masters’ in education administration from the University of Hawaii.
She served at Sacred Hearts Academy from 1952 to 2011 teaching religion and other subjects at all grade levels and giving private music lessons. She was also the principal of Sacred Hearts Elementary School from 1963 to 1980. From 2011 to 2016, she taught piano to students at St. Patrick School.
In addition to her teaching career, Sister Anne-Marie found her greatest joy directing the Associates of the Sacred Hearts. On the second Sunday of every month she met with these lay men and women to pray for the needs of the church and the world. She also held fundraisers to assist Sacred Hearts missionaries in the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Tonga.
In this month’s Associates Newsletter, she reflected on Thanksgiving Day, writing in her director’s message, “We praise God and thank him for all his gifts to us, especially for his love.”
In a 2013 interview in the Hawaii Catholic Herald, Sister Anne-Marie talked about her main work.
“As a sister of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, my primary ministry is of adoration,” she said. “It is through my life’s practice of eucharistic adoration that, with my students, I have grown more in tune with the music in the heart.”
Sister Anne-Marie piano lessons were also religion lessons.
“Before and after each lesson, my students and I say a prayer,” she said. “I have taught them the anthem to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and they love it. I hope that they keep up that love of prayer in the future.”
Sister Anne-Marie said she regularly recited the Prayer of Jabez from the Old Testament book, 1 Chronicles.
“At the beginning of each day … I bow as low as my arthritic body can bend as I pray: ‘Oh that you would bless me and expand my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from the evil one.’”
“I ask God to bless me in the way he wants to and to lead me according to the rhythm of whatever he desires me to do.”
