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On an ordinary summer day, Father Pomeisl was sitting and writing in his journal in a small chapel at St. Columba’s parish in Hopewell Junction. The light was gleaming through the window and the only sound was the peaceful whirring of a small fan.
He was on a summer apostolic assignment. When he realized the significance of what he wrote in his journal, he knew without a doubt that priesthood was the right decision.
He wrote that it was one of the happiest days of his life.
“I was just doing normal parish priest things and thinking, ‘This really makes me happy.’ I was praying. I was helping other people. The whole day I hadn’t thought of myself at all. If normal days are going to be this good, this is definitely what I should do,” he said.
Father Pomeisl, 26, is one of seven boys born to Kenneth and Susan Pomeisl in Amenia. Faith was part of everyday life for the family. They attended Sunday Mass at Immaculate Conception-St. Patrick’s in Amenia taking up a whole pew, he said with a laugh.
Of his childhood, he said, “My parents taught me to pray at night before bed, that always stuck with me. It was the beginning of my spiritual life.”
As a teenager, he said, he “started falling in love with our Lord in the Eucharist.’’ That soon planted the idea of becoming a priest in the back of his mind. “I kept it pretty quiet to myself at first,” he said.
“It surprised me too, so I told my confessor,” he said, explaining that he and his brothers went to confession once a month.
Within a year, he told his parents. They suggested he pray about it and see what God had in store for him. When he thought of the priesthood, he thought of the priest in his home parish, Father John Durkin. “For my whole life, I only knew one priest, my parish priest. When I had the idea to become a priest, that’s who I thought of,” said Father Pomeisl, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Prayer has always been central, a way of life fostered at St. Joseph’s Seminary. “Being a priest, our whole life is being another Christ,” he said. “If I never spoke to him, it wouldn’t make sense. If I am going to be another Christ, I have to be with him as much as possible.”
Among his prayer practices is daily recitation of the Rosary. “It wasn’t a regular practice for me,” he said. “When I started praying the Rosary every day, my vocation became more sure. The connection that Mary has with our Lord in his priesthood—she has that same special care for men in the priesthood.”
As a priest, he is looking forward to his first Mass, and said a special moment will be giving his mother the maniturgium at the conclusion of his first Mass. It is a cloth that a priest uses after the consecration. “At your first Mass, you present it to your mother,” he said, saying he wanted to honor his parents for their quiet example of faith and love.
Father Pomeisl’s first Mass will be on Sunday, May 26 at 2 p.m. at Immaculate Conception-St. Patrick’s in Amenia, May 26, at 2 p.m. The homilist will be Father Brian Graebe, parochial vicar of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Hopewell Junction.
