Couple gives a lifetime of service to the Church
As the wind lashed its cold breath across New Jersey on a Friday afternoon in January Bill and Marianne Mackey were in the parking lot of their parish carrying boxes of cereal from the food pantry to their car. It was another moment of quiet service in a lifetime filled with them.
It’s dizzying to hear Bill, 68, and Marianne, 71, rattle off all the ministries with which they’re involved. Marianne runs the parish food pantry. Bill is a leader of the Knights of Columbus. And they are everything else in between: lectors, Eucharistic ministers, money counters, and more. The couple has been supplying a fountain of good deeds for over half a century.
“Every parish should have a couple like Bill and Marianne,” said Fr. Mike Donovan, the pastor of Queen of Peace Church in North Arlington where the Mackeys serve and worship. “They are shining lights. They really are. They never look for recognition. They quietly go about it. They get what being a Christian is all about: just simply serving and sacrificing.”
How do they do it?
“I don’t sleep,” Marianne joked.
The Mackeys retired from teaching jobs at Rafael De J. Cordero Elementary School in 2010 in Jersey City where they met and fell in love. Their rooms were across the hall from each other. Bill taught math, science, and history and Marianne was a language arts teacher.
They were each raised in working class Jersey City neighborhoods and educated in Catholic schools. Bill was an altar server until he was 18 and Marianne sang in the church choir.
“I was bused to Immaculate Conception in Lodi,” Marianne said. “It was always a running joke that I was the nun who got away.”
Over the years Bill witnessed the steady gentrification of his old downtown Jersey City neighborhood. When they married, the couple moved to North Arlington where Marianne was living.
Marianne joined the Social Concerns Committee at Queen of Peace Parish after moving out of Jersey City.
“Somehow, after the second meeting, I became the head of it,” she said. “Everybody was laughing. So, I’ve been the head of it since 1990, and that eventually turned in to the food pantry, the blood drives, the gift tags.”
Retirement only opened up more time for volunteering. Although, their day-jobs never stopped Bill and Marianne from serving as much as possible. They also raised three boys together, including their son Michael who had special needs and died suddenly three years ago at the age of 44.
“That was a big test of our faith,” said Marianne. Bill called it, “life-altering.”
Serving others helped Marianne process the profound sorrow of losing a child, she said.
Where did they find the time to volunteer?
“That’s what we want to know,” Bill joked.
There would be a 1,000 school papers to grade every week. They also checked their own children’s homework and got them to soccer practice, baseball practice, and Scouting events.
Bill began a Cub Scout and Boy Scout troop at the church in the mid 1980s and helped revitalize Scouting in North Arlington.
“Boy Scouts was very big in this town and then it died out,” he said. Today the program is going strong.
Bill was a Scout Master for nine years and coached little league soccer for the town program. Marianne was also involved in Scouting.
Their parish work often intersects with the charitable efforts of North Arlington like the Elk’s BPO and local Veterans groups. The Knights raise money to support organizations in North Arlington and surrounding towns. The Queen of Peace Church food pantry is the defacto food pantry for the town. Such community interaction is important, they said.
“It’s for people,” said Marianne. “It’s not exclusive. It’s supposed to be to show your love to your neighbor.”
If there’s a need we help them no matter who they are, Bill added.
“That’s what we do as Catholics and as townspeople,” he said. “We have town pride. Catholics and non-Catholics are very generous in helping out because it’s for the greater good of the town.”
The couple often works with Queen of Peace Grammar School to involve school children in service and giving. Students have helped raise money to purchase wheelchairs and they donate Christmas gifts to peers.
“It’s really trying to get people acclimated to just giving of themselves and feeling like they’re a part of something,” Marianne said.
The Mackeys are trying their best to counteract the precipitous decline in volunteerism they have observed in recent years.
“I think all organizations have experienced a downfall in participation,” Marianne said.
“People are aging out,” Bill said, adding that the average age of a Knight is 65. “It’s tough getting young people to join and help out. We try. We tell them we don’t want a lot of their time.”
Why volunteer?
There are a few scriptural maxims the Mackeys live by when it comes to church ministry.
“We’re raised with the idea in the church that whatever you do for the least of my people you do unto me,” Bill said. “That’s pretty much our guiding philosophy. You always read: treat your neighbor as you want to treat yourself. You are your brother’s keeper. To those who are given much, much will be expected.”
Giving time is just as important as giving money, the couple said. And it makes you feel good!
“Otherwise where would you be? In front of the TV set?” Marianne said. “I help someone and I feel like I’ve made a difference in their lives even for a minute, a second, a day. That’s all I want. You just feel a part of people’s lives. You can help people.”
It’s therapeutic, she noted. Marianne once told a relative suffering from depression that the best thing they could do was go out and volunteer.
“Even if it’s at an animal shelter or something like that,” she said. “For a few minutes you will forget what your troubles are and you will be enhanced because you get yourself involved in other people’s lives. It’s like when Jesus said, ‘Love one another. Love your neighbor as yourself.’ That’s basically, I think, what you’re in this life for.”
Bill and Marianne said they hope they can inspire others to volunteer.
“Both of us realize that we’re getting older,” Marianne said. “Not that we want to stop, but we have to start to draw back so other people can take our place.”
Bill and Marianne Mackey are pictured at Queen of Peace Church in North Arlington where the Mackeys serve and worship. (Photo by Jai Agnish/Archdiocese of Newark)
