In Pace Christi

Vincenzo was born in Naples on 6^th December 1930, into a poor family. It is the logic of Christ to choose simple and poor people because the poor have a free heart, which can be inhabited by God's plans.

He entered the novitiate in Florence, where he took his first vows on 7^th October 1956. Two years later, he was already on a mission in Ecuador, where he made his perpetual religious profession on 9^th September 1962, in Santa Maria de los Cayapas.

Brother Vincenzo left us at the age of 94. Almost all of his life, distributed in various alternating stages, was spent in Ecuador and Mexico. Two strong points of his 'charisma' were vocation promotion and missionary animation, through the distribution of magazines, especially those for children. He was always on the move, visiting parishes and schools. He was good at what he was doing and achieved excellent results.

In the community, he was very quiet. He was a discreet and reserved man, always ‘out of the photo’, as they say in Naples. He carried out his work with tenacity and perseverance. He had many defects, but no more than us. He did not know much about Comboni's ‘literature’, but he had captured his spirituality and his love for the mission.

Here are some ‘Comboni virtues’ that everyone recognised in him. First of all, the personal sacrifice for the ‘arduous mission’, as Comboni said, and Brother Vincenzo did not spare himself. He was ready for the effort and the total gift of himself because he loved his work and his vocation as a Brother.

His was a ‘Comboni holiness’: Comboni had wanted holy and capable missionaries, and Brother Vincenzo not only loved this thought of the Founder but also put it into practice. He shunned, however, that religious fanaticism which is the brother of stupidity. Comboni had wanted ‘humble’ missionaries and Brother Vincenzo did not boast of his work and service: yes, he possessed authentic humility.

Brother Vincenzo always put God first, and this led him to have a life of prayer. Everyone saw him retire to the chapel in the evening, sometimes even at night, when he returned late from the various places he had visited, and early in the morning there he was again, waiting for the recitation of Lauds. He was often seen walking along the avenue of the seminary, with his missionary rosary in his hand.

As already mentioned, he had missionary animation in his blood: he never missed an opportunity to speak about the Comboni mission in schools, parishes and religious institutes, both male and female. He was a tireless promoter of our magazines and books, always with good results. He was an unsurpassed vocations promoter: his favourite method was personal contact with possible candidates, whom he visited in their families and to whom he sent personal letters. The seminarians of the minor seminary of San Francisco del Rincón, in Mexico, held him in high esteem and enjoyed listening to him while he spoke Spanish with a Neapolitan accent.

Not everything, however, went as he would have liked. There was no shortage of confreres who criticised him for his way of working. Some, perhaps jokingly, teased him by saying: “You do the work of the priests.” He, however, kept quiet and put up with it. He deeply loved his vocation as a Brother, but he also believed - and he demonstrated it firmly - that missionary animation is the task and mission of every Comboni Missionary.

In some communities where he was, he also found obstacles and opposition regarding his activities and initiatives, but no one was ever able to stop him. And for a simple reason: he believed in what he was doing. The results and the fruits proved him right.

Brother Vincenzo lived a concrete, humble and simple faith. Franco Accardo, a Lay Comboni missionary from Ercolano, who often hosted Brother Vincenzo in his home when he returned for holidays in Italy, wrote this in his testimony: “The love for the mission and the Comboni style shone through his words, his looks and his gestures. You could feel that he was practising what he was preaching.” (Father Teresino Serra, mccj)