MARFAM’S WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTER. 13 MARCH 2025.

 As the Pope’s 2025 Jubilee year programme offered a special Jubilee for Volunteers on 8-9 March this is a great moment to reflect and share on volunteering.  I soon discovered there is a surprisingly wide understanding of the topic and lots of insights, pros and cons. The US bishops produced a helpful document for this jubilee to download from. https://www.usccb.org/committees/jubilee-2025

What exactly is volunteering?   I see it as doing something voluntarily without financial compensation, mainly for a social good – teaching, caring, or a large variety of practical and manual tasks.  Motivation? It could be for a charity, church or a particular interest – First Aid, animal care or using one’s skill for others e.g. teaching literacy.  Points below are from the US Bishops doc with some local additions:

  • Parishioners volunteer for one or more ministries in a parish community (i.e., liturgical ministers, church council members, catechists, musicians or choir members,  women’s or men’s sodality projects, SSVP,   J&P,  Laudato Si,   Caritas, soup kitchen, altar servers, sewing groups, HIV/AID workers, non-paid ministry coordinators – marriage or parent programmes,  migrant or human trafficking projects (in church as well as in community)   
  • Lay Catholics who give time to the civic community (i.e. volunteer firefighters and first Aid volunteers, community clean-up work, home-based care, secular poverty programs and shelters, coordinate community social events,  fundraising, NGOs etc.).
  •  Lay Catholics active on the  regional, national, or global level through volunteer- based service and/or mission organizations (i.e., Catholic Volunteer Network, Catholic Relief Services/JRS,  young people or families who travel to volunteer in foreign countries sometimes as missionaries, (see image of family at Salesian Institute Cape Town.)

Volunteering is naturally not all done by Catholics or from a spiritual or religious angle.    

  •  Members of many other faiths doing voluntary work and disaster relief – Gift of the Givers,  Anglicare,  SA Vroue Federasie.  Rhema projects +++++++
  •  Most NGOs work with some paid staff, some part-time and unpaid volunteer fieldworkers. Their motivation varies greatly and is not necessarily spiritual but intrinsically for a positive cause. The exploitation of volunteers can be a problem.   

Why do I do voluntary work? Is it God’s work?  It has been common in church that apart from the clergy most church tasks were performed by unpaid volunteers at different skill levels, from PPC, catechetics, choir, sodality activities beyond attending meetings, and church maintenance. Very often these were “non-working” women caring for families and contributing to church and other charitable work, also bringing skills, while their husband were the main bread-winners. Think of CWL – community services or adoption society, Compassionate Friends.  Child Welfare and dozens more in social activism or justice matters.  Men did contribute but to a lesser degree.   

Today, with women in the job market this voluntary aspect of offering “free time” has had to change. Charitable projects became additional to job and family commitments, some making major sacrifices.  From a family perspective in that context I ask which aspect of their lives would be most likely to suffer?  Is it family and children?   Today, for all population and social groups, women and often working women remain the backbone of many NGOs, but not necessarily as unpaid volunteers.  While all this volunteering is excellent and necessary it is equally necessary to get one’s motivation and priorities in balance. Why do we do what we do?  Does it become a passion and even justifies neglect of personal and family relationship and our own spiritual growth?    Is being a home mom too boring?  How many marriages are breaking up because of outside commitments, or children complaining that their parents are never there for them, maybe giving them only some quality time as an excuse for not being able to give them quantity time too.  Learning the practice of volunteering can start at home, e.g eco-friendly family activities.    

Is volunteering God’s  work?  Overall worldwide it appears that true volunteering is on the decline. Reasons proposed are: time pressures, financial needs, less community-mindedness,  decreasing spirituality and love for others – the poor, sick, underprivileged, greater “self-love,” social media and many other distractions, little or no satisfaction in voluntary work, and, for many of us oldies, burnout.  We’ve been there and done that for years and years and now it is time for a new generation with new approaches to an age-old need.  Could MARFAM’s becoming Eco-Friendly Families apply in this era of climate change?

Why do we do what we do? Is it a personality, a calling, a response to an example or a conversion experience?  Pope Francis sent a message for the closing Mass of the Jubilee of Volunteers attended by some 25 000 volunteers from around the world.  He expressed his thoughts”  “I thank you heartily, dear friends, because, following the example of Jesus, you serve your neighbours unstintingly. On the streets and in homes, in the company of the sick, the suffering and the imprisoned, with the young and the elderly, your generosity and commitment offer hope to our entire society.  There, too enslaved to market logic, where everything risks being subject to the criterion of interest and the quest for profit, volunteering is prophecy and a SIGN OF HOPE.”

MARFAM’S Lenten theme reminds us: Signs of Hope do exist – in the volunteers who give of themselves generously to the sick, migrants, the poor and the earth.   But as Pilgrims of Hope there remains much to be done to become Signs of Hope.  Otherwise who will do the God-work that is a heart-felt expression of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a powerful gift to share this season of Lent.  Some of the Lenten acts of love and sacrifice can be seen as being volunteers. Check the list or www.marfam.org.za for ideas.   TR    FAMILY WEEKLY 13.3.25

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY MARCH 13.

March 13. Queen Esther seized with deathly anxiety fled to the Lord.  Lucie was the one who opened the sharing. “The ways of society globally right now are frightening. Leaders and rulers have rights as well as their responsibilities to act in the best interests of their people not just for their own interests. There is always jealousy, scheming and plotting against the good, honest leaders, while others are willing to cosy up to the bad leaders.  For us too, in a small way we are all like the leaders, having responsibilities and rights, but do we always do what is just and fair?

Reflect, share and act. Scripture: Queen Esther seized with deathly anxiety fled to the Lord. Save us from the hand of our enemies. Esther 14. Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive.” Mat 7:7. Pope Francis. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human. It is felt to be a threat since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. EG 56.   JUBILEE.  A reality to do with eternal life is God’s judgement, both at the end of our individual lives and at the end of history. Artists have often attempted to portray it in accordance with the theological vision of their times and with the aim of inspiring a sense of awe in the viewer. We should prepare ourselves consciously and soberly for the moment when our lives will be judged, but we must always do this from the standpoint of hope, the theological virtue that sustains our lives and shields them from groundless fear. The judgement of God, who is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8.16), will surely be based on love, and in particular on all that we have done or failed to do with regard to those in need. we are speaking of a judgement unlike any handed down by human, earthly tribunals; it should be understood as a rapport of truth with the God who is love and with oneself, within the unfathomable mystery of divine mercy. SNC 22. Choose an act of love and sacrifice from the list published on ww.marfam.org.za  https://marfam.org.za/2025-jubilee-families-and-lent/