Please join and welcome Jay Cuasay as the Director of Religious Education (High School and Adult) at Christ the Redeemer. (For help in pronouncing Jay's name, see the footnote.) Jay and his wife Eileen live just a couple of minutes from the Church and Jay has been coming to CTR since 2002. As you will see in the following profile, Jay is uniquely qualified to lead the adults and teens of the Parish as they seek to deepen their faith.

Jay Cuasay is a Roman Catholic lay minister married to Eileen, a Jewish woman and practicing clinical psychologist. He and Eileen moved to Sterling from Annandale in August 2002, after living in various places up and down the east coast. Prior to accepting his current DRE position, he has served Christ the Redeemer parish as a Eucharistic Minister.

A graduate from Washington Theological Union, he received a Masters in Pastoral Studies with a focus on Mission and Cross Cultural Studies. He began his theological studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and was a Special Student at Columbia Theological Seminary. Highlights of his graduate work include an internship in social justice, music ministry at numerous Catholic, ecumenical, and interfaith events, and his pastoral thesis, which examined Jewish views of Christianity post-Vatican II with a positive view of discipleship and mission for interfaith marriage.

Born in Philadelphia PA, Jay grew up in the farmlands of Burlington County NJ and the Monmouth County Jersey Shore. He is the youngest of four (two older sisters and an eldest brother). His family is first-generation Filipino, with a number of relatives living in the Philippines and worldwide. He has visited the Philippines several times and has lived and worked in Japan and Thailand.

His elementary schooling was through the Sisters of Saint Joseph with fond memories of his early catechism at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Moorestown NJ. Even more formative were his high school years at Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft NJ, where he developed a deep interest in Christian mystics, zen meditation, wilderness awareness, and the other typical activities of writing, literature and theater production. He graduated with the Br. Albert McKenna Award for English in 1989.

Most of his career has been in the non-profit, educational, or arts sectors. Jay has taught English and Film courses at the College level, ESL and Cultural Studies courses overseas for elementary and adult learners, and designed RE courses for interfaith settings. For the past decade, his professional focus emphasized communications and advocacy work. With the increased use of the Internet, he became a media consultant for print and online communications assisting individuals and institutions, particular those with a religious or interfaith interest. Some highlights include the NAIN and NAEIS convention, Ecumenical Advocacy Days, and the Center of Concern. Most recently, he worked for Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies.

Jay holds a BA (Magna Cum Laude) in Comparative Literature from Fordham University College at Lincoln Center, where he met his wife, and an additional Masters in International Film from Ohio University. Jay has worked in several theater production companies as a director, producer, and actor in musicals and one act plays. He has acted in a few student films, but prefers to write film criticism. More frequently, he writes commentary on the intersection of faith and culture. He also plays the guitar and piano, and can be heard on CD with the St. Camillus Multicultural Choir.

The movement from the somewhat typical catholic education of his youth to the more intentional and focused studies and activities of his adult life comes from an attitude of continuous learning. It also comes as a response to the complexity and diversity of modern life with multiple gifts of becoming and opportunities to serve. This is a challenge that the Catholic Church has faced universally and that today’s youth in the United States also face in a different more acute way than in the past.

Jay believes this openness to diversity, well grounded in proper discernment and professional pastoral sensibility, is an appropriate attitude for a disciple on mission today. It is an attitude he hopes to share with the CTR parish and with the particular people who share in this ministry.

Jay would like to extend a fraternal thanks to the Franciscans of Holy Name Province and to Tracy McDonnell and the Multicultural Choir at St. Camillus for the many gifts shared and with whom he has cultivated and deepened his sense of mission and pastoral service through the years.

Pronounce Jay's last name as: Qua' sigh (by English phonetics) or Cua' say (by Spanish pronunciation).