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Book Review
Deacon's book a tribute to parents, gift of faith
Reviewed by Andrew Junker, ajunker@catholicsun.org
October 16, 2008
Deacon Bill Vivio has been preaching at Masses in the Valley for a few decades now. That’s given him a lot of opportunity to weave the Gospel message into his own reflections and experiences.
He’s taken some of those homilies, reworked and packaged them in a new book called “My Father’s Wisdom, My Mother’s Love: A Spiritual Gift.”
From the title, you might have guessed that these reflections are centered on Deacon Vivio’s parents. It’s not rare for a priest or deacon to use a domestic story or two in their homilies.
But Deacon Vivio’s parents are colorful and interesting, which makes for a good and compelling read.
The deacon’s father was an Italian immigrant christened Vittorio Emmanuele after Italy’s king. He was renamed Victor Emmanuel upon entering the United States by immigration officials.
Vic Vivio, as he was known, seemed to have spoken almost entirely in pithy memorable phrases.
“Don’t fight it, box it,” and “Don’t forget what it’s like to be a kid,” and “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,” and “Don’t go away mad, just go away,” and — the list goes on.
Deacon Vivio often uses one of these phrases to begin each chapter, all of which are ultimately focused on a Gospel message.
For example, chapter four begins with Vic Vivio’s “Don’t forget what it’s like to be a kid,” then segues into Deacon Vivio’s reflection of his First Holy Communion, and concludes with the lesson that all of us “laugh a little more, play a little more, and always remember that, as a believer, [we] are [children] of God.”
The book’s other chapters roughly follow this pattern, which is not to denigrate the book — the pattern works, and Deacon Vivio’s years of preaching have given him a good style and talent for storytelling.
Lessons of love
But it helps that Deacon Vivio’s father — whom he references more often than this mother — had such an abundance (or abbondanza, he might have said) of wit.
“I remember when my dad retired at the age of sixty-five and we discussed the notion of growing older,” Deacon Vivio writes. “I had just turned forty, and I questioned my dad, ‘Who would want to live until age ninety-five?’ And Dad answered, ‘A ninety-four-year-old.’”
Deacon Vivio’s mother, named Mary, taught him unconditional love from his birth. The deacon and instructor of religious education writes that the lesson of love is one he comes back to again and again in his ministry.
“I tell the parents [who bring their children to baptism preparation classes] that other than our Heavenly Father, no one loves these children more than they do,” Deacon Vivio writes. “Just think of the potential of your children if they are raised in an atmosphere of unconditional love. Your children will grow in love to be adults who are men and women of total love.”
Deacon Vivio quotes the Gospel throughout his book, but returns a number of times to a couple of verses. One of these is “Love one another as I love you,” and another is, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
Those two sentences sum up well both the message of “My Father’s Wisdom, My Mother’s Love” and Deacon Vivio’s general outlook.
His view of life — formed in large part by his father and mother’s example — is an expansive one. And it makes sense. When you truly believe the words and life-giving actions of Christ, it makes it a little easier to love others as He did.
Media critic Andrew Junker is a staff writer for The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.
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