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.

Good afternoon to each of you – family and friends of our Jubilarians, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, our MSC brothers, our Sisters and, in a special way our Jubilarians, Sheila and Mona.

You will readily agree that this is a wonderful occasion as we mark seventy years of religious profession as Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Sisters Sheila and Mona. In essence, we are celebrating God’s limitless love of our Sisters and their faith-filled, generous response.

The Catholic Bishops of Australia invite Catholics across the country to join in celebrating a Year of Youth from the beginning of Advent 2017 to the end of 2018.

The Year of Youth celebrates ten years since World Youth Day was hosted in Sydney during 2008. It will focus on the theme, ‘Open New Horizons for Spreading Joy: Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment’. The emphasis is on local discussion and dialogue in parishes, schools, youth groups and dioceses.

As we prepare to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of St John Paul II’s iconic words to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Alice Springs on 29 November 1986, we are strengthened and emboldened by a message of hope and a blessing received directly from the Holy Father, Pope Francis.

In recent weeks, NATSICC, with the assistance of the Bishops Conference used a video message to request a blessing from the Holy Father. Recorded in Alice Springs, the video features people that were present at Blatherskite Park in 1986. These people experienced firsthand the impact that St John Paul II’s words made.

The annual Graduation ceremony for the Heart of Life Centre, for the SILOAM, the Spiritual Direction program, was held in the chapel of St Paschal's, Box Hill, November 21st.

The ceremony was hosted by the director, Paul Beirne, along with the staff.

Eighty-five-year-old Catholic nun, Sister Anne Gardiner, who has lived on Bathurst Island among the Tiwi people since she was 22 was named the NT Senior Australian of the Year.

Territorians who are preventing suicide in their community, feeding the homeless, providing training and employment for the disadvantaged, educating young people and contributing to the community’s rich artistic landscape are among the finalists in the 2017 Northern Territory Australian of the Year Awards. As a 22-year-old member of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Sister Anne Gardiner was asked to move to Bathurst Island to live among the Tiwi people. In the 62 years since, Sr Anne has devoted her life to enriching community, enhancing opportunity and supporting the Tiwi culture. An advocate of peace, love and the traditional Tiwi way of life, Sr Anne has worked tirelessly to document and preserve the Tiwi language for future generations.

When Sister Anne Gardiner arrived on the Tiwi Islands, she met the women who, as young girls, had been brought out of the bush nearly 40 years earlier to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart's then new convent.

The convent is still there. So too is Sister Anne, 85, who arrived on Bathurst Island in 1953 and has seen the community changed almost beyond recognition.

The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which the Church is celebrating, casts a distinct light on World Mission Sunday 2016: it invites us to consider the missio ad gentes as a great, immense work of mercy, both spiritual and material. On this World Mission Sunday, all of us are invited to "go out" as missionary disciples, each generously offering their talents, creativity, wisdom and experience in order to bring the message of God’s tenderness and compassion to the entire human family. By virtue of the missionary mandate, the Church cares for those who do not know the Gospel, because she wants everyone to be saved and to experience the Lord’s love. She “is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel” (Misericordiae Vultus, 12) and to proclaim mercy in every corner of the world, reaching every person, young or old.