Australia's senior citizen of the year in 2017, Sr Anne Gardiner, is on the move using her national profile to benefit the Tiwi indigenous community on Bathurst Island.

As a result of this award and through the generosity of Richard Rolfe OAM, the dealer principal at the Audi Centre Canberra, Sister Anne has been gifted a 4WD scooter which will allow her to activate a new project where she will meet and talk with every Tiwi person between the ages of 18 and 35 about self-esteem, motivation, and mutual respect.

"I will sit down and talk to the people to see if I can help them to understand the world that they are living in," Sister Anne said.

I’ve seen a few things in my time but if I was asked to give one piece of advice it would be this: our identity as humans is in who we are, not what we are. Who we are is only possible through our spoken languages and our lived cultures.

It is a message that is relevant today, as it was when I was born in Gundagai, NSW, the youngest of four children of Mollie and William Gardiner. We were a happy farming family.

All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ captured me. (Phil .3: 10-13)

The Pastoral Framework for the Sacramental Catechesis of Children is helping to bring families, schools and parishes closer together, according to those who oversee work in this area.

Carmen Balales and Sr Jenny Seal, who coordinate family and parish- based catechesis on behalf of the Archdiocese, say the response to the new framework has been “fantastic” and those involved are appreciative that the preparation process is more accommodating of the realities of families today.

Africa is a continent full of life, with a great cultural and religious patrimony. We cannot abandon it. Let us join our voices to the voice of the African peoples.

“When we look at Africa, we see much more than its great natural richness.

Sister Anne Gardiner has been living on Bathurst island north of Darwin since 1953. She is a community champion for the Tiwi islanders she knows and loves so well. As the 2017 Senior Australian of the year her message is about the absolute necessity to connect cultures and celebrate indigenous heritage. Sister Anne is speaking with Fiona Sewell.

Often when we see something terrible happen we don’t know what to do.  We think everything is too hard, too big and beyond us.  There’s an old saying:  “Where there’s a will there’s a way” and this is definitely true.  We don’t always know the way and often we get too caught up going through the things we can’t do, rather than focusing on the things we can.  I guess it is all about perspective.

You are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life 
as from the beginning he had meant you to live it. (Eph 2:10)

Singing is the sign of the heart’s joy (cf. Acts 2:46).
Thus St Augustine says rightly, “Singing is for one who loves”,
and there is also an ancient proverb: “Whoever sings well prays twice over.”

It’s a powerful and positive story – Senior Australian of the Year 2017, Sister Anne Gardiner, has devoted her entire life to helping the indigenous Tiwi people on remote Bathurst Island, north of Darwin. For more than 50 years she’s worked tirelessly to improve their quality of life, never expecting anything in return.

About to turn 86 this year, you could expect Sister Anne to be a little hard-of-hearing or frail. But when we talk to her, she sounds calm and crystal clear. I’ve only just introduced myself and she asks me where I’m from. I tell her NSW and she laughs: “That’s my home state, NSW! I was born in Gundagai – Dog on the Tucker Box country!”

On Sunday, March 12, friends of PNG living in Sydney gathered at the Sacred Heart Monastery, Kensington, to welcome Cardinal Sir John Ribat msc and to celebrate the appointment by Pope Francis of the first Cardinal in Papua New Guinea and the first MSC to be granted such an honour.

A prayer resource is available for liturgy, personal and group reflection in high schools and parishes to mark this year's International Women's Day or for any other occasion with a theme focused on women.

The ten International Women's Day values are: Justice, Dignity, Hope, Equality, Collaboration, Tenacity, Appreciation, Respect, Empathy and Forgiveness

Let us pray for all women around the world! 

In the 1930’s my father was a boarder at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College, Whinstanes. My parents, Celine and Frank, were married at the Altar of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in St Mary’s Church Ipswich. I and my four siblings were educated at St Joseph’s by the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, and my sisters continued onto OLSH College. My eldest sister Gerardine, is of course a Daughter of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart herself. As Gerardine entered the convent when I was only 10, I have spent the majority of my holidays, over the past 40 years, in and around Convents of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart throughout Australia and across the world. In fact, I think I could be confident in saying that I have possibly been to more convents than the Sisters themselves!  So this is the lifetime pedigree I come to you with this evening, to speak about the Sisters.

The Senior Australian of the Year for 2017 is Catholic nun Sister Anne Gardiner from the Tiwi Islands.

A Catholic nun who has spent half a century helping the Northern Territory's Tiwi people has been named Senior Australian of the Year.

Sister Anne Gardiner was bestowed the honour on 25 January at a ceremony in Parliament House's Great Hall.

Sister Anne Gardiner vividly recalls the day she flew to the Tiwi Islands to start her missionary work.

“That was a moment of joy when I landed,” she said. “I got out of the plane and the children all ran up to me, pinching my skin and saying ‘you look so young’.”

The year was 1953. Sr Anne was just 22 years old and, as a member of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, she had been asked to move to Bathurst Island, the smaller of the two Tiwi Islands, 80km north of Darwin, to live among the Tiwi Aboriginal people.