Deacon Frank Hodges, whose engineering experience performed an integral position within the restoration of Corpus Christi Church in Bolton Hill, died Jan. 11 at age 93.
“It was the church that Frank constructed,” mentioned Monsignor Richard J. Bozzelli, who was pastor of Corpus Christi from 2000 to 2010, a decade when a collection of initiatives revealed the Gothic underpinnings from its building in 1880. “He had the imaginative and prescient, resilience and confidence that we may do it.”
Monsignor Bozzelli provided the homily at Deacon Hodges’ Jan. 15 funeral at Corpus Christi. He’s now the pastor of St. Bernardine in West Baltimore, which figured in Deacon Hodges’ conversion to the Catholic religion.
In response to Addison Hodges, one of many late deacon’s three kids, he was raised in Ellicott Metropolis, within the Episcopal religion. On drives into Baltimore, Hodges mentioned, his father, beginning when he was round age 10, “Would inform his mom, our Nana, that he wished to develop into Catholic, particularly after seeing the gold tower on St. Bernardine.”
Hodges mentioned that his dad and mom married in 1949, and transformed to the Catholic religion. In response to Monsignor Bozzelli, that religion journey included Deacon Hodges’ mom additionally turning into Catholic.
Deacon Hodges was uncovered to the religion each day at Calvert Corridor School Excessive Faculty, at its former campus on Cathedral Avenue, throughout from the Basilica of the Nationwide Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore. He was in its class of 1946, when the yearbook mentioned he appreciated swimming, basketball and baseball, that he aspired to be a chemical engineer and his quote was “Sluggish, regular, wins the race.”
In response to his son, Deacon Hodges earned a full scholarship to check electrical engineering at The Johns Hopkins College in Baltimore. His profession took him to a collection of protection contractors; quite a few patents are filed beneath his identify. In response to his son, by the early Nineties he was the pinnacle employees scientist for Lockheed and Martin Marietta.
Deacon Hodges and his spouse, Jean, settled in Bolton Hill and raised their three kids, Frank Jr., Jennifer and Addison, at Corpus Christi. Jennifer attended the Institute of Notre Dame, and Addison attended Mount St. Joseph Excessive Faculty.
“My dad would open his door for anybody,” Addison Hodges mentioned. “He gave to all, pals, household, the homeless.”
Deacon Hodges was ordained to the everlasting diaconate in 1981, and assigned to serve his dwelling parish. In his homily, Monsignor Bozzelli described Corpus Christi having pews that sat atop a picket platform, inflicting points with entry; a inexperienced carpet hid mosaics; and defective warmth.
“From the very first time Frank confirmed me round this church, he already had a totally new imaginative and prescient for its inside,” Monsignor Bozzelli mentioned. “He hated the inexperienced carpet and talked about rebuilding a brand new inside that will be extra in step with the Gothic revival structure of the church.
“He described pulling up the entire pews and putting in pipes that will radiate warmth from beneath a stone or tiled flooring, which might lastly clear up the decades-old heating downside.”
Monsignor Bozzelli mentioned he “threw one impediment after one other to distract him from this loopy concept,” however that Deacon Hodges met each problem, which included the parish elevating $1 million.
“Frank may see past a parish neighborhood that was barely paying its electrical payments to the renovated and rebuilt church now we have at present,” mentioned Monsignor Bozzelli, who added that Deacon Hodges labored intently with Bob Wissman and the late Joe Shiflett.
“It was an actual group,” he mentioned.
On its web site, Corpus Christi describes a worship house by which “Lots of the mosaics and stained glass home windows … are thought of a few of the best examples on the planet.”
The parish took to opening for excursions throughout Artscape, the annual summer season competition which pulls hordes to Mount Royal Avenue.
“Individuals would inform me,” Monsignor Bozzelli mentioned, “that there’s extra paintings in your church than there’s in all the competition.”
He added that Deacon Hodges’ “sense of service was extra individual to individual” than institutional.
E-mail Paul McMullen at pmcmullen@CatholicReview.org
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