A sports injury that blocked his road to the Rome Olympics, a Christian Brother who offered him a “free ticket to Heaven” and a persuasive aunt all played a part in Brother Chris Pritchard’s vocation story that’s spanned 60 years, The Catholic Leader reports.

Br Chris, a key man at St Patrick’s College, Shorncliffe, in Brisbane, was well on his way to representing Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) as a swimmer at the 1960 Olympics in Rome when injury ruined his dream.

Now into his 70s, Br Chris has been keen on sport all his life, but he said swimming would have to be his favourite “in the sense that I was knocking on the door for the Olympics (representing Rhodesia) in 1960”.

*Br Chris Pritchard CFC. PHOTO: The Catholic Leader.*

“My time would’ve given me possibly a third or a fourth at the Rome Olympics, but I got injured just before the final (selection) trials, so I didn’t go …,” he said.

“And so it actually happened that eventually I went to (join) the Christian Brothers (instead).

“Maybe the Lord said, ‘We’ll take you this way and not that way …’,” he laughs as he considers what might’ve been.

“I mean, who knows what would’ve happened if I’d have gone to Rome …”

Back in the classroom, instead of in the pool in Rome, it was a Christian Brother who was to change the direction of young Chris’ life in just two weeks.

“One of our brothers, the RE teacher, got sick and so he disappeared for a few weeks, and we had a Brother – his name was Valentine Johnson – and he came and gave us lessons for two weeks,” Br Chris said.

“He really was good, and he had hundreds of stories … I don’t know whether he was following any syllabus or anything.

“And then he finished up by saying, ‘To be a brother, is a free ticket to Heaven …’

“And I thought, ‘Free ticket to Heaven? … Nobody else can promise you that …’

“I was riding home (that afternoon) – and I can almost see the spot; it was an S-bend – and I went around the S-bend, and it sort of clicked …”

That was the moment he started thinking seriously about becoming a Christian Brother.

His father was non-committal and his mother was against the idea, but a visit from an aunt changed everything when she talked his parents around to the idea.

Whatever it was that attracted him, he was called into a way of life he came to love, and now he is one of few Christian Brothers still serving in schools in Queensland.

He’s the only brother at St Patrick’s College, at Shorncliffe, on Brisbane’s northside, and is in his 22nd year there.

His journey across the globe began when he left Rhodesia at the age of 18 and headed off to Stellenbosch, 50km east of Cape Town, to begin his training with the Christian Brothers.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing from Stellenbosch to Shorncliffe though.

In 1979 he was appointed principal of St Bernard’s, Bochabela, outside Bloemfontein, in South Africa.

The following year there was a student uprising and all the schools in the area closed from May till the end of the year.

“As I was the principal, I was there subject to being shot, so literally from May to the end of the year every day was a challenge to get in alive and get out alive,” Br Chris said.

He managed to lead the school through a turbulent time before his eventual transfer to Australia.

“I would say I really got through it purely on prayer … lots of it,” he said.

“The Lord was good … There were three distinct occasions when I could’ve been killed, but He was there.”

Br Chris arrived in Australia in 1982, and his first posting was to St Laurence’s College, South Brisbane.

He went on to teach at Christian Brothers’ schools around Queensland – St Teresa’s Catholic College, Abergowrie, near Ingham; St Mary’s, Toowoomba; St Brendan’s, Yeppoon; and then-Mount Carmel College, Charters Towers.

That took him to 1998 when he was appointed to St Patrick’s, Shorncliffe, and he’s been there ever since.

Being the only religious left at the Shorncliffe college doesn’t bother Br Chris.

“I don’t question it as such,” he said.

“The students and the staff know that I’m a brother, and it’s always ‘Good morning, Brother …, Yes, Brother … Three bags full, Brother …’

“So, like St Francis of Assisi said, ‘We’re going to give a sermon …’ and his companion said, ‘Well, we haven’t said anything …’, and St Francis said, ‘But we’ve given the sermon by our presence …’

“And a number of years ago, that was one of the big things they were pushing (in the brothers and at St Patrick’s) … about the presence in the place (and its importance).

“So what effect it has I don’t know but I do know there is an effect, and I leave that to the Lord to work out …,” he said.

This is an abridged version of an article written by Peter Bugden and published in The Catholic Leader. Read the full article here.