Volunteers, the Christian face of society

“Without voluntary work the common good and society cannot last long because their progress and dignity is largely dependent on people who do more than just their duty.” (Pope Benedict XVI, 2010).

The Holy Father said to Austrian volunteers last year, “Volunteers are not just there to patch up holes in the social fabric,” they help to form “the human and Christian face of society.” Let’s nurture a culture of volunteerism in T&T/the world. CCSJ’s July Newsletter highlights examples of people in our Archdiocese who engage in a variety of charitable activities.

Recently I received an e-mail from Renessa Tang Pack who took a year off from her work as a lawyer in a Government Ministry in T&T to work as a Programme Staff Member on the Dominican Volunteers International Project (DVI), working with Dominican sisters at the Cuernavaca Center for Intercultural Dialogue on Development (www.ccidd.org ), which is situated in Mexico. CCIDD is “a Christian, ecumenical, social justice center engaging participants in cross cultural experiences, spiritual reflection, and social analysis”.

The nuns at Rosary Monastery, St Ann’s, are Renessa’s “sending community”. She has known them for four years and has participated in their Lectio Divina group. Renessa is also part of the Associates group of the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena, within which she has participated in prayer and study of the Bible and the mission and charism of the Dominican Order. The Dominican sisters, Sisters Kathy Long, Aline, Rosa and Jacqueline are her “receiving community” in Mexico.

DVI is “a project of the Dominican family which links persons and communities from different parts of the world in order to collaborate in the preaching mission” (www.dviop.org). Read Renessa’s reflections on her journey to Mexico and her first few weeks there: www.ccidd.org/Newsletter_june11.pdf.

In May, 2011, DVI volunteer, Maria de los Angeles Alvarez of Mexico, joined the staff at St Dominic’s Children’s Home in Belmont for one year. She is the fifth DVI volunteer here. Welcome Maria!

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Renessa says that her responsibilities will “range from assisting in the planning and facilitating of cross cultural immersion experiences for university students, Church groups and Dominican family members, conducting spiritual reflection sessions for some of the groups, being editor of the CCIDD Newsletter and generally assisting at the Center.” She will also be “assisting Sr Kathy with the Dominican Justice and Peace Commission here in Mexico”. The following is an extract from her reflections:

“After my 3-day trip to Puebla, I came back in time to do a service exercise which entailed assisting a poor family in Cuernavaca in building a wall of their home and meeting Ray Plankey, the founder of CCIDD. His personal life story inspired me and confirmed that I was following the right path…after quitting his well-paying job as an engineer, he started off mission as a papal volunteer being sent by the Benedictines and making his life work that of a Catholic lay missionary. He eventually founded CCIDD in 1977 to sensitise North Americans and Canadians about social justice issues in Latin America.”

In 2007, John Thavis reported on Pope Benedict XVI meeting with Austrian volunteers. The Holy Father told them their “generous and unpaid service to others was essential to modern society. Love of neighbour can never simply be delegated to the state but demands personal commitment in order to keep its human dimension”, the Pope said.

“He said that to allow oneself to be called to service to others, without the usual questions about whether it is useful or profitable, is a path taken by many saints through the centuries and is no less relevant today…Unpaid service has much to do with God’s grace, he said, and it challenges the thinking of ‘a culture which would calculate the cost of everything.’ The pope said volunteerism fits perfectly with Christ’s teaching about love and sacrifice.”

There are many ways in which you can volunteer to help achieve the Mission of our Archdiocese. Remember, “Each one of you has received a special grace, so, like good stewards responsible for all these different graces of God, put yourselves at the service of others” (1 Peter 4:10).