The role of volunteering serving the needy. Reading the signs of time, the Church regards the
voluntary organisations as a new form of missionary activity for and of the faithful; what needs to
be remarked, however, is that volunteering engages both believers and non-believers, for whom it
provides an opportunity for social involvement for the benefit of a community. At present newer
and newer forms of volunteering are developing at a fast speed. Especially popular are cultural,
educational, ecological or even media volunteering types, which bring close difficult life problems
of certain communities with a view to making others active and thus leading to an ultimate solution
thereof. Also, forms of volunteering work are undergoing a process of change. The present study is
an attempt at an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of volunteering from the perspective of
missionary and social involvement of people for the benefit of the whole community. Volunteering
is one of the biggest chances for a humanisation of history; how the chance is going to be taken
advantage of, however, is up to us.
Key words: volunteering, missionary activity, social involvement, serving people, the Catholic
Church