TWO young men including a former Brisbane accountant publicly accepted a year of poverty, chastity and obedience as religious brothers last month.
Brother James Hodge, who is a former student from Marist College, Rosalie, and Brother Jack O’Sullivan made their first professions with the Marist Brothers on August 20.
They promised themselves to the order before 120 brothers, family and friends on the Feast of the Assumption at St Kevin’s Parish, Eastwood, Sydney.
Br Hodge, 31, is the nephew of Brisbane priest Fr Clem Hodge and brother to Australian Catholic University theology lecturer Joel Hodge.
He completed a business degree at the Queensland University of Technology and worked as a campus minister at his former high school and Mt Maria College, Mitchelton.
Following his graduation, Br Hodge worked as an accountant with Marist Solidary Office in Ashgrove before moving to Cambodia, working for nine months at a Marist Brothers boarding school for children with disabilities.
It was in Cambodia the newly professed brother found his calling.
“Through my experiences of working alongside the brothers in Brisbane and then at Salla Lavalla in Cambodia, I found myself being continually drawn to them,” Br Hodge said.
“Their strong sense of fraternity, Marist spirituality, and their witness of simply being brothers to others and to marginalised youth, were vocational qualities that resonated strongly in me.”
Br Jack O’Sullivan, 26, is a former student from Notre Dame College in Shepparton, Victoria, and previously worked as a youth minister for the Melbourne archdiocese.
Attending three World Youth Days left Br O’Sullivan with “a hunger and a desire for wanting a closer relationship with God”.
“The witness of the brothers and the Marist formation program in the novitiate has helped me to better discern where God is leading me in my Marist life,” Br O’Sullivan said.
Marist provincial Br Jeffrey Crowe welcomed the enthusiastic new brothers into the province during their professions.
“Jack and James, from your time of discernment in the novitiate, I know you understand the content of your religious commitment,” Br Crowe said.
“We can all feel the conviction you have brought to this day of profession and the enthusiasm of your young hearts to follow Christ in the spirit of St Marcellin Champagnat.”
Br Hodge and Br O’Sullivan completed their two-year novitiate in the United States with an American novice.
During their novitiate, they received intercultural formation with novices from South America to gain a global context for their future ministries with young people in need.
The Marist Brothers are an international community of more than 3000 religious brothers founded by French priest St Marcellin Champagnat.
The order has been in Australia for nearly 150 years and came to Queensland in 1929.
Marist Brothers around the world will celebrate their bicentenary in 2017.
