In Pace Christi

Bro. Vicenzo was born on 1 August 1926 at Borgo Sacco (Trent). “From boyhood – he wrote for Raccontiamoci in March 2013 – I had a strong desire to be a missionary. I knocked on the doors of various Institutes but they all rejected me! I went to study with the Rosminians to become a priest but I found the studies hard... but I never lost heart, my vocation was to become a missionary and I never looked back. I became a Comboni Brother and discovered that, even though I was not great at the studies, in practical matters I managed fairly well!”.

That was how he joined the Combonis in Florence. A year later he was sent to the novitiate in Sunningdale (England) where he made his first profession on 7 October 1948. Two years later he was appointed to the NAP where, on 7 October 1954, he took final vows – in Cincinnati – and where he exercised his missionary ministry for as many as 19 years (1950-1969).

After spending seven years in Italy (1970-1977), he was sent to the mission in Kenya for another long period abroad (1977-1995). From 1995 to 2005 he ministered at the General Curia in Rome.

In 2006 he was assigned to Italy. He spent the remaining years of his missionary life in the community of the Mother House in Verona and in Castel D’Azzano where he died on 26 July 2019.

His funeral was celebrated on the morning of 29 July with the Superior of the community of Castel d’Azzano, Fr. Renzo Piazza presiding. After the Mass, Fr. Teresino Serra – who had known Bro. Vicenzo in Cincinnati (USA) during his novitiate and had later lived with him in Kenya and at the Curia in Rome – expressed his gratitude and admiration for this “real Comboni Brother” who succeeded in combining diligent work with missionary prayer and spirituality.

In recent months at Castel D’Azzano, Bro. Vicenzo suffered quite a lot. He was practically immobile. Bro. Virginio Manzana, his room companion, stressed the patience of Bro. Vincenzo who never complained and the concern of the personnel who lovingly cared for him.

In his homily, Fr. Renzo Piazza mentioned that, in the past, the Annuario used to add to the description “Comboni Missionary Brother”, the words: “ad omnia”, meaning a person available for all the humble services: the kitchen, reception, the house or the sacristy. Apparently unimportant services but services that often qualify the life of a community. Bro. Vicenzo lived like a Brother, working like a Brother, showing that fraternity is possible.

Bro. Vicenzo, Fr. Renzo said, “did not like wasting time. It was at the reception that he came into contact with the world. He not only took the phone calls but spent his free time writing to confreres scattered throughout the world with words of friendship, encouragement and fraternity. He wrote much, to people he knew as well as to others who he did not know, brought together by the missionary vocation. His notes, written by hand in simple words contained a message of hope and consolation. Those who shared a community with him bear witness to his love for prayer, faithful and persevering, which he showed in his personal relationship with Our Lord and his care and love for the liturgy through serving in the sacristy.

As a Brother ad omnia he was a faithful and wise steward of the things of the house.

The final years of his life were marked by sickness and suffering but not once was he heard complaining. The long period he spent confined to bed, with little possibility of relating to others and difficulties in plenty caused me to ask myself what sense there was in spending months and years in this condition. I am reminded of what St. Paul says: ‘While this exterior man is being destroyed, the interior man instead is being renewed day by day’. Perhaps those who saw his wounds and cared for them may find it hard to accept these words”.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 282 Suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2020 pp. 89-92.