The Catholic Leader - 12 November - Issue 5477

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32 Humans of the Church
The Catholic Leader, November 12, 2017
‘Keep teaching ... Never give up because Jesus is believing in you’
God’s work full of surprises
By Peter Bugden
PAUL Hodgkinson, approaching 83
and aware it might be time to call it
a day as a teacher, turned to God for
guidance. He was bowled over by
what happened next.
He’d been a teacher in Christian Broth-
ers schools all around Queensland and for the
past 20 years has been a Religious Instruction
volunteer in state schools near where he lives at
Collingwood Park, west of Brisbane.
“I was going to school one day towards the
end of last year and I said, ‘Look, Lord, I’ll be
83 next year, I’m not sure if you want me to
keep going.’ I said, ‘Will you give me a sign?’,”
Paul said.
“I had four (Religious Instruction) classes
that day, and at the end of the fourth class, a girl
came out with a whole page written out.”
Paul got the message loud and clear from what
the student had written – “God wants you to
keep going … You’re not to give up”.
“And I hadn’t told the kids anything,” he said.
“And then the next day another class came
along and they said, ‘We’ve formed a prayer
group at our place with so-and-so’s parents in
charge, we’ve watched you praying, we want
you to teach us how you do it’.
“They were kids from Grade 6.”
The written message from the girl who wanted
him to stick with Religious Instruction said:
“Thank you for teaching us RI. We all want to
say thank you. You’re a good RI teacher. I hope
you can teach RI more in your life, because
Jesus is listening ...”
She wrote a similar message in a poem: “Keep
teaching … Never give up because Jesus is
believing in you.”
Paul had no choice but to keep going, and he’s
loving it, but the way his life has unfolded he
should be used to God’s surprises.
He first heard God’s call to service when he
was a schoolboy, and he joined the Christian
Brothers as a 13-year-old.
After many years as a teacher and principal,
his life took a different turn.
“I was 40 years in the Brothers … with no
intention of leaving,” he said.
“But the Lord had different plans.”
He and a Sister of Mercy, Christine, happened
to be working together with renewal of religious
life and in Charismatic retreats for religious, and
then later in supporting the victims of incest.
“And the Lord was healing them,” Paul said.
“And one of them said to me, ‘Why aren’t you
two working together full-time?’
“So I got permission from (Christian Brothers)
headquarters to work with Christine at the con-
vent at Keera Street, Coorparoo, and the Lord was
healing a lot of these women who were abused.
“Halfway through that year I was on retreat
and I felt the Lord calling me to marry Christine,
which surprised me.
“I had no intention of leaving the Brothers. I
had no intention of leaving religious life.
“(But) I put it to Christine, and she said,
‘Well, we better get this discerned, hey?’
“And, well, it was discerned (with our reli-
gious superiors), and Rome gave the okay, really
a blessing.”
Christine, a Sister of Mercy for 25 years, was
facing the same decision as Paul.
“As time went by … and we were still work-
ing together, the Lord seemed to be calling us
into a new life together,” she said.
“It was like he gave us a choice.
“He opened a door and we could go through
that door into a new vocation of marriage or we
didn’t, and we felt that it was the Lord’s call, and
it was discerned by our superiors and by Rome,
writing to the Congregation for Religious Life,
and receiving the dispensation from our order.
“I never went back to teaching since we got
married, except to do the Religious Instruction.”
They joined Brisbane’s Emmanuel Commu-
nity, and they’ve been together ever since.
That’s 29 years out of religious life, but not at
all away from Christian service.
Taking the decision to live by divine provi-
dence, they haven’t taken on paid employment
but made their way from the sale of religious
icons Paul has created and religious resource
videos Christine has produced, and from selling
books and distributing evangelisation videos.
“We were doing many other things – (like)
looking after people living with us,” Christine
said.
“We were involved with the renewal of the
Church, Evangelisation 2000, preparing for
the Jubilee Year 2000, as part of a team we
co-ordinated a prayer campaign for the whole of
Australia, I worked with videos, made videos,
and (we’ve) done a whole heap of stuff.”
That’s included caring for the poor, welcom-
ing them into their home, and producing an in-
ternational magazine on spiritual renewal, called
Renewal in Hope, with Christine as editor.
“But the Lord’s called us into school again,”
Christine said.
She’s co-ordinating Religious Instruction at
Collingwood Park and Redbank state schools as
a volunteer and taking five Year 1 classes, and
Paul volunteers for RI for seven Years 5 and 6 at
Collingwood Park and Redbank.
That’s another twist that took Paul by surprise.
A year after Christine began volunteering in
RI, it was Paul’s turn to make a decision.
“Christine was at me, saying, ‘Hey, you
should do this’,” Paul said.
“I said, ‘No, I’m finished with school. No way.
I don’t want to go into a classroom ever again’.
“But I was standing outside the shed one day
and I said, ‘Lord, well, if you want me to go, you
get someone to ask me other than Christine’.
“And the next day, Christine had to get a
book over at Redbank Plains and we went over
after Mass and she got the book, and the princi-
pal saw me in the corridor – it was only the first
week of school – and the principal saw me in
the distance and he said, ‘Hey, Paul, the Grade
5 parents are screaming out for an RE teacher;
would you do it?’
“Well, my legs started to shake and I had to say
Yes, of course, and that was the end of the story.”
Having lived by God’s providence the couple
now has freedom from a different source.
“We’re on the pension now, so we’re rich,”
Christine laughs.
“And that’s great. It’s a freeing thing not to
worry about paying the bills, and being able to
do volunteer work.
“It’s very difficult to get volunteers.
“Even tuckshops and schools can’t get volun-
teers, because a lot of young families are strug-
gling to pay off mortgages, and the poor parents
– mum and dad both have to work, and for many
years, to pay off things, and so they haven’t got
the freedom to do volunteer work.
“So, we have the freedom, and it’s great.
“We just wish more people could get in-
volved.”
Anyone interested in becoming an RI
instructor can contact Carole Danby at
Evangelisation Brisbane on (07) 3324 3445
or your local parish priest.
Dedicated volunteers: Paul and Christine Hodgkinson are loving their time as Religious Instruction volunteers in state schools.
I was 40
years in the
Brothers … with
no intention of
leaving. But the
Lord had different
plans.