Meet Father Carey, director of the Office for Worship

By Christie L. Chicoine
CS&T Staff Writer

The tinkling bells at Mass during the consecration once prompted 3-year-old Jerry Carey to research — in his family’s pew at St. Barnabas Church — the reason behind those intriguing, musical rings.
“I remember my mother leaning over and whispering, ‘Now God is here. Jesus is with us,’” said Father Gerald P. Carey, now 37-years-old and director of the Archdiocese’s Office for Worship. He was appointed to that position by Cardinal Justin Rigali last summer.
“I remember the pew I was in — the eighth pew back from the altar,” he said. That was in 1970, and it was the first of many pivotal liturgical moments that eventually turned a curious little boy into a full-fledged priest.
“The liturgy is very dear to my heart,” Father Carey said. “[It] is central to all of our lives.”
Throughout his childhood he was profoundly affected by the beauty and rites of the Church — the Mass, itself, and the sacred Mysteries as they unfolded before him. The Forty Hours devotions were particularly meaningful to him, as a student and parishioner of St. Barnabas.
“I remember very vividly the quiet afternoons in November, just sitting there before the Eucharist,” he said. “That was a moment that my faith was really nourished.”
For that, he credits one of St. Barnabas’s parochial vicars at the time — Father Joseph J. Nicolo, who is now pastor of St. Helena Parish in Blue Bell, and who Father Carey also credits with helping him discern his priestly vocation.
Father Nicolo “made sure there were always adorers before the Blessed Sacrament during the period of exposition. We had to come out of school and take turns, two by two, and adore the Blessed Sacrament,” Father Carey said.
At St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Father Daniel E. Mackle taught him foundational courses in liturgy, as well as practical liturgical courses — Father Carey calls them “how-to classes” — for celebrating Mass, baptisms, weddings and funerals, among other liturgical rites.
Back then, Father Carey said, he would have never guessed that he would one day succeed Father Mackle in this position.
“I’m very humbled, because there’s still a lot that I have to learn,” he said. “It’s like a whole new world opening up before me.”
Father Carey said he has always been inspired by the hard work of his predecessor, and he was particularly impressed by Father Mackle’s meticulous way of ensuring a smooth transition in the directorship. “He’s a very organized person, very hardworking, very conscientious.”
Father Carey is the second of three children born to Gerald and Patricia Carey. He is a 1981 alumnus of St. Barnabas School, and he graduated from West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys in 1985.
Before entering St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in 1992, he received a bachelor’s degree in music in 1989 from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. In 1997, he received a master of divinity degree from St. Charles. He was ordained May 16, 1998.
Assignments include: parochial vicar, Corpus Christi Parish, Lansdale; parochial vicar, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, which is the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s mission parish in Barceloneta, Puerto Rico; parochial vicar, Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul; chaplain, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Chapel.
The Office for Worship fosters liturgical renewal and full, active participation in worship. It assists, particularly, those involved in the ministries of the Church, such as priests, deacons, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, lectors and servers.
“The Office for Worship is here to assist all the faithful,” Father Carey said. “We are here to provide ongoing catechesis and formation for them.”
The office coordinates educational efforts in liturgy, music, art and environment, as well as the liturgical celebration of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA).
His appointment as director of the Office for Worship last summer — in the same year Pope John Paul II announced the Year of the Eucharist — is particularly meaningful to Father Carey.
“Cardinal Rigali would like this year, above all, to be a year of conversion and, deepening our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament,” Father Carey said. “Not only outside of Mass ... but also in the Mass itself.”
“[We] need to approach the Eucharist worthily, through frequent confession, and to come to the Lord’s table with our hearts prepared to do so,” Father Carey said. That way, we can accept the Eucharist as “the ultimate sign of love, sacrifice and charity toward our brothers and sisters in the Lord.”

CS&T Staff Writer Christie L. Chicoine can be reached at (215) 587-2468 or cchicoin@adphila.org