Ask and you will receive

Published: 22 January 2012
By: Selina Venier

Lived faith: Angela and Jack Greathead

IT'S not often The Catholic Leader is credited with providing the platform for an 18-year marriage, six children and five chooks living harmoniously on Brisbane's northside.

When Banyo's Angela and Jack Greathead marked their anniversary on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 8, this year, they couldn't help but reminisce about how such harmony came to be.

"I had just gone back to practising the faith," Jack said of what prompted him to write a Letter to the Editor published on March 10, 1991.

"I was feeling quite isolated as a young person in the Church and was reading The Catholic Leader to look for connections.

"I wanted to find other like-minded Catholics who took their faith seriously."

Jack said he'd been "conscious of contradictions" in the way he was living and that meant self examination and a return to the values of his childhood led back to the Church he loves so dearly.

His letter read: "I would like to get in contact with other younger Catholics who have faith in the Church's teachings on daily living ... it seems difficult to live as a true Catholic in today's world. Are there others out there who are trying?"

Enter Angela Gambley, who was living and working as a teacher in Barcaldine, west of Rockhampton, at the time.

Raised in Nambour, she would read The Leader while away especially "to keep in touch with what was happening" in Brisbane archdiocese.

"Jack's letter really struck a chord with me," Angela said.

"As a young person in the country I was feeling quite isolated in my faith too ... there was only one other young person in the parish at the time."

Jack received about six responses from a range of people, including males, but it was Angela who kept up the dialogue and the two decided to meet.

"I had to come to Brisbane for an early childhood conference," Angela said.

"Jack suggested we meet on the Queen Street Mall and said he'd be the only guy in motorbike gear, standing against a pole ... neither of us knew what the other looked like."

The gracious mother of six said the friend she was staying with offered "some concern" about the subsequent encounter but Angela "wasn't worried".

Jovial Jack said they "talked for hours" after meeting in person.

"We probably had the longest conversation we've ever had," he said.

"It was unusual because we're both quite introverted by nature."

Keeping up the dialogue with "17 hours on a bus" between them, Jack said their friendship, based on shared and lived faith in God and His Church, "morphed into what it was meant to be".

Angela's family "had the engagement card at the ready", she said, as they "prayed and discerned" the future.

"There were two main things I was looking for and I knew would be a concern down the track," Jack said of his discernment.

"... Being married to someone who was kind and open-hearted around family and older people was important.

"The other point was about money and that it's not the 'be-all-and-end-all' of everything."

Jack said in Angela he found those qualities and someone "with a generosity of spirit".

Both had been raised in devoted Catholic families of six children.

Angela said before committing to Jack, she appreciated discovering the necessity and benefits of "owning" her faith.

"Teaching in the country I had to made a conscious decision that my faith was mine and not my family's," she said.

"I realised that it's up to me to get up and get out of bed to go to daily Mass ... no-one was there to remind me.
"I think everyone needs to go through their own personal conversion."

Within that realisation, Angela found in Jack someone who not only shared her spiritual convictions but also was "easy to talk to, happy and honest".

"My good looks didn't come into it?" Jack queried.

"His humour was attractive too," Angela responded.

Amid 41-degree heat in St Joseph's Church, Nambour, the couple wed on January 8, 1994.

Moving for a time to Toowoomba and Longreach, they were "always involved in their local parish".

"Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'You guys are part of the ecumenical choir'," Jack recalled.

"We are still in touch with people from the cathedral choir in Toowoomba."

A move to Brisbane, where Jack works in the government's financial sector, saw them land close to where he grew up in Wavell Heights.

Nowadays the Greatheads' involvement in parish life continues with children Christopher, 17, Bridget, 15, Michael, 12, David, 10, Luke, 7, and Katharine, 5.

Angela co-ordinates a junior faith studies group in Banyo Nundah parish and is a counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association.

Jack is a member of the parish pastoral council and regular cantor.

Their older two contribute musical talents while all, once old enough, are or have been altar servers and youth advocates.

"We try and role model our faith," Jack said, Angela adding, "With faith in action."

"Our faith is a part of our lives, not an extra, it's what our family does," she continued.

The duo offered key philosophies for life like "prioritising family time".

"That means from a work sense, family comes first," Jack said.

"(And) not taking that promotion if it means less time with family," Angela added.

"Remembering to say sorry" is another shared philosophy.

"In our marriage we have learnt to 'accept the sorry'," Jack said. "That means to believe when someone is saying sorry even though it may not be a 'perfect sorry'."

Angela and Jack also prioritise "dates with each other" and opt to "get away at least once a year together" when possible.

Their lived faith allows their children to witness decision making "different to other people", Jack said.

Within that reality they have "an openness to life and respect for life at its beginning and end" and a desire to "look after others".

"Angela is much better at that than me," Jack said of the latter, the couple crediting her upbringing.

"We are also a united front," he said. "I wouldn't criticise Angela in front of the kids. "We have a common view of things."

For the Greatheads, their harmonious, God-centred home is based on "loving the kids and being thankful for the diversity of their personalities".

A focus on prayer about their childrens' vocations has been shared more recently.

"The same prayer our families were saying for us all those years ago we have started saying for our children," Angela said.

"... We pray they can make the right choice about their vocation."

And while The Leader is still here to help, the feeling is God has it all in hand.