He discerned a vocation to the religious life and entered the Society of Mary (Marist Fathers) in 1918, completing his secondary studies at the juniorate in Sydney and Mittagong (1919–20).
On 7 March 1921, the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, he entered the New Zealand Marist Novitiate at “Greenmeadows” Seminary in Hawkes Bay, Napier and took his first vows on 2 February 1923.
During the period 1945 to 1974 Dr Woodbury taught courses in both philosophy and theology, and at the height of his teaching an average of 600 students would enrol each year.
The Aquinas Academy was set up under the auspices of the Australian Province of the Marist Fathers by Fr Austin Woodbury SM in March 1945.
For some twenty-nine years it continued in this capacity under Fr Woodbury's guidance, in premises at the back of St Patrick's Church, Gloucester Street, in The Rocks (Sydney, NSW).