To be Refuge and Light: Pat Jackson
Pat Jackson (left) with her husband, Paul (centre) and son Samuel (right).
AS TOLD TO:
Samuel Harris
READ TIME:
10 mins
An ongoing series of profiles - part of our basket of stories - in which we talk to Catholic lay people in the diocese about their day-to-day life and work in light of the call of the laity to “consecrate the world itself to God, everywhere offering worship by the holiness of their lives” in “the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world” (Lumen Gentium).
Well, I’m the second child (of five) of Nancy and Tame and yeah, we were a Catholic family. My dad worked on the railways, so we lived in a railways house in Frankton. A three-bedroom house - I shared with my brothers and that was probably really good for us!
I remember praying the Rosary as a family. Mum used to lead that. I never really went to Catholic schools. I did go to CCD, the old catechetical programme for children. I’ve always gone to Mass my whole life. But I haven’t known Jesus my whole life.
As a kid I used to go to church and we used to have Fr D. and ooh boy he was scary. I used to think God was like Fr D., and I thought if God’s like Fr D, I don’t like God much - but I still used to go to Mass. When I was about fifteen the rest of the family stopped going to Mass because Mum and Dad stopped going - something happened in our family - but I just kept going, and doing and being.
Some years later, when I was teaching at my first teaching job a Catholic mission group called ICPE came, and they did a drama and it touched my heart right then - it was meant to be for the kids but it was for me too. And that took me on a journey. At the end of the year I did a summer school with ICPE for a month, in Wellington at St Gerard’s monastery, and then the following year I took a year’s leave and went to Germany and did another ICPE school for four months. We ended up in Poland on an outreach - and talk about being stretched and growing! God did so much in that time. It’s often the point I go back to when things are tough. You know, we believe in God’s blessing every day and his provision, and God is with us all the time, we know that, but if there’s times that are hard I often reach back to those times and think, “If the Lord was with me then, and he took me through that, he’s going to take me through this stuff.” So I think that trip was the big turning point for me.
Then I came back, and I was very restless, for a long time. Because when you live in a community like that, full-on for God 24/7 and then you come out … I came back to Hamilton and I didn’t feel like there was anybody around who was likeminded. So I moved to Auckland. Got a job up there, got involved in the planning team for the Hearts Aflame summer school for Catholic young adults, and then I met Paul. We got married, left Auckland. Paul wasn’t Catholic at the time, and for a while we went to two services on Sundays - to Mass and then to a Pentecostal community. Paul reckons he was “just waiting for her to give up that Catholic nonsense”!
We lead the youth group at Cambridge Elim, and some people couldn’t understand how we could go to a community like that. But, you know, we were trying to think of what we would call my faith and we came up with “orthodox pentecostal Catholic.” I wonder if the biggest thing missing in the Catholic Church is that we don’t know who the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit leads and guides us every day. Sometimes the Holy Spirit places things on our hearts - words of knowledge, the Bible calls it - about people which means then that you can have empathy and compassion for them, and be in communion with them.
We have a son, Samuel - he’s adopted. Straight from the beginning, when Paul and I first started dating, we told each other everything, and I had PCOS, and I said, “I don’t think I can have children” - because I think you shouldn’t get into a relationship unless you think it might lead to marriage. Paul said, “Well I’m marrying you, I’m not marrying our children.” So we got married and were just open to miracles - we prayed. We’d decided as a couple that we had to be complete in ourselves, and that if God provided children, that was up to him. About four years in I sort of got a word from God that we’d have a son and that his name would be Samuel, and about that time we decided to go for adoption, and went through the whole process. We waited for four years and then just before Christmas 2004 we got a call. We went to Tauranga to pick the baby up - and the Mass readings were from the first book of Samuel: “... the barren woman will bear a son.” So Samuel’s a gift, an answer to prayer. Paul was in RCIA during this, and then he and Samuel were received into the Church at Easter that year - really special.
Sometimes you’re not sure why God leads you places. I finished a teaching job at St Paul’s in Ngāruawāhia at the end of 2020, feeling like my time as a primary school teacher was finished, like that season was ended. I can only teach for about three years in a row and then I’m done - because I give my whole self and then it completely shatters you and I just can’t do it for a couple of years. I’d been a principal before that, and thought I might be a principal elsewhere, so applied at other schools - and none of the applications came off. It felt like I’d got so trained up as a teacher and school leader and there are so many Catholic schools that need faithful and professional teachers, but it felt like that wasn’t where God wanted me to be. It was a bit confusing as to why that was but I had prayed about it all, and I trusted God. Obedience is really important to us. I have a little business selling secondhand furniture, and that was picking up at the time. I trusted that I was walking where God wanted me to be, at home with my parents - they came to live with us a little while back - and running a little business.
I sold a lot of stuff during lockdown last year, but not much later. It doesn’t really earn much. It does provide a chance to share things with people who come here - you might spend an hour chatting to a customer. Some people who come in here are very withdrawn but by the time they leave they genuinely say, “Oh wow, thanks for that chat!” So it is something that I really love, and Paul often says to me that it’s my ministry - being with people, sharing the love of God. Not necessarily talking about God but if you walk into my shed there’s so much Catholic stuff - not for sale, I just say, “That’s mine, I’m Catholic” - that often leads to a conversation where you might just pop a word into somebody’s heart or head and they’ll go away and think about it, and a lot of change can happen. Sometimes, around lifestyle choices and sin and belief and so on, we Catholics should know better because we know Christ - but we do sometimes expect a lot of people who don’t know Christ. And they’re not going to want to if we keep pushing them away all the time. I think sometimes we probably do need to open the doors a little bit more. Jesus would have invited people in, taken them by the hand. But truth is part of evangelisation too, definitely. Truth and love. Being bold and brave. I’m a bit feisty - I’m very much a mother-protector but I’m not afraid to tell it like it is. Sometimes if it’s just nicey-nicey, lovey happy, it’s not actually reality and it doesn’t help people to change. You know, Jesus wasn’t nice all the time - sometimes he had a really stern word to somebody. I won’t be stern, I’ll just put it like a question: “Is that really what you want to be doing?” or “Do you believe that God would have that of you?”
My prayer is up and down. I’ve been outside in the garden a lot over the last year, and a lot of my prayer has just been during the day as I work. It used to be I’d sit down for an hour. I still read my missal and do reflect on the scriptures of the day for about fifteen minutes, think about how they might affect what I’m going to do today. We sometimes pray the Rosary - not as much as we should. I often pray in the car when on road trips to pick up stuff. Praise music, singing, the usual stuff. Just trying to be in communication with God during the day. And at the end of the day, I think about what’s gone on during the day, talk to God about it.
You asked about the secret of a successful marriage. Having good role models is important.
My parents have just had their sixtieth wedding anniversary. They got engaged within three days of meeting each other, and then they separated - Mum was visiting Kawerau with her sister and my Dad had just happened to come in from the railways, and he knew a guy who said, “Come home and meet my sister-in-law,” so Dad came home and met her on the first night, on the second night they went to the movies, on the third night they got engaged. Then Dad had to leave and Mum went back to Whangārei. Six months later they got together again and got married. Our parents have been a huge influence on me: I am who I am because of them. There’s no two ways about it. The determination and sacrifice I”ve seen from Mum. The faith I’ve seen from Dad. After he’d stopped going to Mass it took a while for healing to happen, but it did, and he came back. He’s such a prayerful, faithful, humble man. His ability to treat everybody exactly the same. If a gang member came in here to the shop, or a little old lady, I’d treat them the same - sure, you’d relate to them slightly differently, but with the same respect - and I’ve learnt that from my father.
Also, in marriage, sacrifice. Decision - we decide to love each other, even when we don’t feel like it at times. We put the other person first. A shared purpose. Passion. You’ve got to have passion - if a couple don’t have passion it’s like, “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Sometimes in the Church when it comes to sex people say, “I don’t want to talk about that,” but God created sex, it’s actually good! A gift. Passion is really important. And really good conversation. We’re fortunate, we think alike on a lot of things. But that shared purpose, that’s the main thing. Our purpose would be to be the light of Christ. We are a Catholic family, people know it. We want to be a bit of refuge for people, to have people visit, or a family to stay in this big house. Mum and Dad live in a unit here with us, so they’re our mission at the moment, sharing life with them.
It’s funny, Dad’s humility and simplicity: he would be happy with just a scrap of bread every day, and he’d say, “That’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten!” That’s the secret - to be happy wherever God places you, whether it’s with a lot or a little. There’s been so much turmoil in our country and Church about different things, and the endless debate and discussion can take our focus away from Jesus. We need to let it go and get back to what’s important. When you stop putting your security in material things, or systems, or your job or house, and put it in Jesus and in his providence you think, “I’m actually quite free.”
We just want to share that idea, and be good stewards of all that God has given us, and be generous. God is so good!
