Father Maurice Carlton excels in serving the People of God

Father Thomas Maurice Carlton
Celebrating 55 years

In its bulletin, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Whitehouse Station, lists Father Maurice T. Carlton’s role as “pastoral support,” a role he has been perfecting for 55 years.

Retired for five years after serving 15 years as pastor of St. Joseph Parish in High Bridge, Father Carlton has been in residence since 2018 at the Hunterdon County congregation. This year, he marks his 55th year of ordination.

Before that, as a member of the Order of St. Benedict, Father Carlton lived as a monk for years in the brotherhood of fellow members. But In 1991, he changed directions, becoming a diocesan priest.

“I talked to the Abbott and said, ‘I think I have to do more on the outside for pastoral work,’ Father Carlton recalled. “We had an amicable separation.”

Bishop Edward T. Hughes, the Metuchen Diocese’s second bishop, told Father Carlton he hesitated taking clergy from outside orders. “But I’ve heard too much about you,” the bishop told the monk. “We’ll take you.”

What did the bishop hear about the priest?

“That I’m OK,” Father Carlton said with a smile. “He didn’t hear the bad stuff, that’s for sure.”

Father Carlton, 82, grew up in Jersey City, where he attended Mass with his parents but said he wasn’t an altar server. The “bad stuff” was well in the past; Father Carlton said he hung out with the wrong crowd in his youth.

He credits monks at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark with being influential in his eventual decision to become a priest. He continued his Catholic education in college, first at St. Peter’s in Jersey City, then St. John’s in Collegeville, Minn., and eventually in Conception Seminary, Conception, Mo., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Father Carlton, who was ordained March 9, 1968, in St. Mary Abbey, Morristown, also holds a Master of Divinity degree from the abbey.

It was while an undergrad that Father Carlton began attending daily Mass.

“And I got this tremendous urge,” Father Carlton recalled, while sitting in the Our Lady sacristy July 2 ahead of hearing confessions and the 5:30 p.m. Mass. “I told people that in 1960, God made me his No. 1 draft choice. And he very clearly said to me, ‘I want you.’ And then in the course of my life, every turn, favorable or not, I can see God directing my life.”

The directing has taken Father Carlton through a varied career in the ministry, from teacher back at St. Benedict’s to counselor with Worldwide Marriage Encounter; rector at University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., to serving Metuchen parishes as parochial vicar, including St. Mary’s in South Amboy and St. Philip and St. James in Phillipsburg.

He said his “best gig” was as chaplain at McCarrick Care Center, now known as Parker at Somerset. While tending to the spiritual needs of older residents at McCarrick, Father Carlton said his role also included celebrating Baptisms and weddings of family members, as well as  funerals.

Residents there helped draw him closer to God, Father Carlton said, recounting one mesmerizing story about a woman named Regina whom he nicknamed “The Reg.”

“She was a wonderful, saintly woman,” Father Carlton said. “She lost her physical sight with age, but she discovered her spiritual sight.”

One day, the woman was near death; Father Carlton sat with her and asked if she saw Jesus. “She said, ‘I don’t see nobody.’ I told the doctor she is not dying tonight.”

She didn’t, but about three days later, the woman told the chaplain, “Remember you asked me if I saw Jesus? I’m looking at him right now, and he’s smiling, and it’s beautiful.” Father Carlton said she died that night.

Father Carlton advises any man considering the priesthood to think and pray about it. “You always have to ask yourself, I think, if not now, when?” he said. “I can’t do it now. Well, when can you do it? Don’t rush into anything, but always think of that option.”