• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
A group of children cheers while waiting for Pope Francis to arrive at the Paul VI Audience Hall for his weekly general audience at the Vatican Feb. 5, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

Become like children

March 12, 2025
By Mark Viviano
Special to the Catholic Review
Filed Under: Amen, Commentary, Full-Court Catholic

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

I reached 60 years of age last year and retired from a 40-year working career in broadcast sports journalism. The transition has allowed me to rediscover the blessed innocence of childhood, in my home and in my heart.

Away from the demands of corporate media, I’ve found joy in what I call “kids world,” where I’m a daily witness to the wide-eyed wonderment, thoughts and discoveries of my sons Michael (9 years old), Christian (6 years old), and their peers.

Michael is a ball of energy who darts about like a water bug at frenetic speeds. Thankfully, he downshifts when he gets a book in his hands. He’ll sit quietly and read for prolonged periods, poring through the latest stack of stories from the library. Michael looks like a calm, mature man when he reads. I’m told he looks like me in those moments.

Christian moves at a drastically different speed than his older brother. He is molasses to Michael’s mercury. Christian is deeply imaginative, a profound thinker who offers weighty observations and poses probing questions. When tucking Christian into bed one night, he asked: “Daddy, does Jesus know when the world will end? Will he tell us when that will be?” From the mouths of babes.

These family snapshots are samples of what I experience more regularly in my new life. I chose early retirement to have more time with my wife and our boys. What stood out in the first months of retirement was my firsthand understanding of the daily level of work Megan did on her own while I was working.

Men, our wives are saints.

With a new schedule, I’m now available for chauffeuring, cooking and cleaning duties, and able to serve as a coach, teacher and school volunteer. I was head coach of Michael’s fall baseball team, something I could not have done on my TV reporting schedule. I have a passion for baseball, passed on to me by my father. Teaching the game to young people is beautifully fulfilling. We had one player who had never played baseball at any level. He came in shy and unsure, but his confidence and ability grew with each practice and game.  By the end of the season, the “rookie of the year” was having the time of his life. A lasting image is that young player in position in left field with the game on the line in the last inning. Nervous, he made the Sign of the Cross. I didn’t teach him that. That was all his doing.

I do teach the Sign of the Cross while serving as first-grade faith formation leader in Sunday school classes at St. John the Evangelist in Severna Park. For decades, my Sundays were committed to Ravens reports for WJZ-TV, but I’ve gladly left football behind to counsel our youths on Catholic life. Every session reveals their curiosity and eagerness to learn, understand and apply the ways of Jesus. It’s an honor to mentor them, even when one of my well-educated students regularly interrupts a lesson with the declaration, “I already know that.” God bless our children.

Sunday school and coaching have given me a new appreciation for full-time school teachers. They, too, are saints. I’m a classroom volunteer and recess monitor at my sons’ elementary school, where I see the patience, care and expertise that teachers deliver every day. The adventures of recess monitoring have included refereeing playground disagreements, summoning the school nurse for skinned knees and accepting an invitation to chase an imaginary horse (yes, we caught it).

Another reward of volunteering is the greeting from students who say, “Hi, Michael’s dad!” or “Hi, Christian’s dad!” It’s an identity I happily embrace, now that I’ve transitioned to life in “kids world.”

Read More Commentary

Forcing clergy to break the seal of confession harms victims

My church, myself: Motherhood, mystery and mercy

Our unexpected pope

The choices of our new pope

Gift of grace 

Yellow and white cloth hangs over the doors of Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in honor of the papal election

Who is our new pope, Pope Leo XIV?

Copyright © 2025 Catholic Review Media

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Mark Viviano

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Forcing clergy to break the seal of confession harms victims

My church, myself: Motherhood, mystery and mercy

Our unexpected pope

The choices of our new pope

Gift of grace 

| Recent Local News |

Bankruptcy court judge gives victim-survivors temporary window to file civil suits

Radio Interview: Meet the Mount St. Mary’s graduate who served as a lector at papal funeral

At St. Mary’s School in Hagerstown, vision takes shape to save a school

Catholic school students ‘elect’ pope in their own ‘conclave’

Baltimore-area Catholics pray for new pope, express excitement for his leadership

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • U.S. bishops release updated pastoral letter on pornography amid rise in sexual exploitation
  • New pope, a tennis fan, meets world’s No. 1 player
  • Meeting Eastern Catholics, pope pledges to be peacemaker
  • Jerusalem patriarch, back in Holy Land, reflects on conclave, ‘inconceivable’ Gaza situation
  • House GOP budget proposal includes cuts to Medicaid, groups that perform abortions
  • With jobs disappearing, cardinal says he ‘rejoiced’ at pope’s name choice
  • New pope’s Black, Creole roots illuminate rich multiracial history of U.S.
  • Forcing clergy to break the seal of confession harms victims
  • Chicago-style hotdogs, pizza, the White Sox just a few of new pope’s Windy City faves

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED