The Santa Teresa Parish in Central Australia has been celebrating this month, with hard-working, but humble, parishioner Miriam Dieudonne being awarded a Service to Community Award from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC).
Miriam was the winner of the Non-Indigenous category in the awards which recognise and celebrate the efforts of those involved in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ministry. Fellow long-time parishioner Bill Ryan was also awarded a certificate of recognition in the same category.
Parish Priest, Fr Prakash Menezes SVD, presented both Miriam and Bill with their awards at Mass, which was followed by a celebration and cutting of the cake, and said the whole community was proud and happy that they had been recognised in this way.
“The Santa Teresa Parish community nominated Miriam for the award and everyone was just so happy for her that she won it,” he says.
“Miriam is a very humble, unassuming person, who wasn’t too happy at the attention she received for winning this award. But we said to her that it is an acknowledgement from the community about the place she has in our hearts for all that she does for us in so many ways to support the life of our community.
“It was basically us saying to her, ‘You are very special for us and we acknowledge your presence here’.”
Miriam arrived in Santa Teresa in 1971 and has stayed ever since in the small Aboriginal community of around 555 Arrernte people located 85km south-east of Alice Springs.
“Miriam is a daily Mass attendee. She leads the musicians and choir every week. She goes beyond that to leading by encouragement and her own practice, the daily prayer of people in the community,” the nomination for Miriam’s award read.
“Nothing is too much for Miriam, no matter what people ask of her – taking Communion Ministers around the community, often taking people to Alice Springs for their own needs, picking up people for Mass and driving them home, looking after old people. She does this with little regard for her own self.
“It is very difficult to sum up all that Miriam has done over so many years and continues to do for the community, for individuals, for families and for the Parish, always in the spirit of the Gospel: ‘I have come to serve and not be served’.”
Both Miriam and Bill originally arrived in Santa Teresa as lay missionaries and decided to stay on.
Like Miriam, Bill has taken on many different roles and tasks in the community over the 45 years since he arrived, including store manager and stockman.
“They both came as lay missionaries, decided to stay on, and found a place in the community’s heart,” Fr Prakash says.
PHOTOS
TOP RIGHT: Miriam Dieudonne, winner of NATSICC's Service to Community Award in the Non-Indigenous Category (Photo credit:natsicc.org.au)
MIDDLE LEFT: Miriam with fellow Santa Teresa parishioner Bill Ryan who was awarded a certificate in the NATSICC Awards (Photo credit: Santa Teresa parish Facebook page).
BOTTOM RIGHT: Fr Prakash Menezes SVD presents Miriam with her award (Santa Teresa parish Facebook page).