Pope’s December Prayer Intention: Let there be Volunteers

Intention: We pray that volunteer non-profit organisations committed to human development find people dedicated to the common good and ceaselessly seek out new paths to international cooperation.

There is a broad spectrum of motives driving volunteers. The overseas school-leavers I dealt with in violence-wracked rural KwaZulu-Natal in the last days of apartheid wanted to see the world and in the process also do some good.

In the pep talk I used to give them, I showed them where our valuables were kept — money, keys to vehicles, and so on — and told them that if anyone came to the door with firearms demanding these, they were to immediately hand them over. “We can replace the money and vehicles,” I would say, rather theatrically, “but we cannot replace you!” It was gratifying to note how sobering these cocky kids found my words of wisdom.

Their youthful spirits soon revived, of course, and some played hard as well as worked hard, making sure they had a good time, linking up with contemporaries at the university and making other social contacts. They were youngsters seizing the day, seeking a little mild adventure. In some cases — such as a hijacking which could have ended in death or injury — they got somewhat more than they bargained for.

Acceptance from the community

Two outstanding volunteers, whom I remember fondly, chose to forego most of the fun side of volunteering and dedicated themselves generously to their task of teaching maths and science to young people of about their own age. They set up a classroom as a laboratory and created in it various apparatuses for scientific experiments.

These two boys were from the UK and were walking into another world, but their openness and their selflessness overcame cultural barriers and thus they achieved a high degree of acceptance in the community. It was a small example of international cooperation, enabling a mutually enriching meeting between young people from vastly different corners of the planet.

I understand that these days volunteer organisations tend to draw their volunteers from more mature people, including the retired. This is because older folk bring great skills and experience to the tasks at hand and can act as mentors to the younger volunteers. The fact that there are men and women who could spend their sunset years touring the world but instead choose to be people for others is surely a strong hint that the Holy Spirit is still at work in the world.

Volunteer, non-profit organisations are hugely difficult to run. They have times of great energy and growth, and other times of diminution and decline. May our prayers lend them courage and creativity coupled with vision and hope.

Published in the December 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine