Father Kohlmann was impacted by life that fostered community

Father Vernon Kohlmann, SDV
Celebrating 25 years

When Vocationist Father Vernon Kohlmann, born in 1943 in St. Cloud, Wisconsin, recalls the impact of his youth in a very rural farming community, his musings seem like meditations on God, creation and the human heart:

“Our farm was 95 acres with cows, chickens, pigs, two dogs, a shepherd and a collie, and in early years, two horses. Mom’s garden provided her with much canning that would be stored in our basement cellar, especially for the winter months.

“Nature and its seasons have much to do with any farm program.  The work of plowing fields, cultivating corn, cutting hay; the expansive fields, the woods, that also gave pasture to our cattle, the presence of the rippling stream that passed through our land … they made one aware of the very ground on which we walked.

“It is to say, especially in looking back, that there was an atmosphere that gave incentive to life’s routines. Nature was providing almost a penetrating backdrop in its variations and vastness, while instilling a bond … through the expression of experience; it also gave a sense of worth … through the beauty of nature surrounding us.”

This was home for Father Kohlmann, and his two brothers, through eighth grade and the summers of high school and college. Then, he recalled, “One spring day, as we walked from the playground at school, my teacher, Sister Mary Louise … asked if I would consider going to St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary about fifteen miles away.

“While I was inclined to pay some passing attention to the large cross that hung above the altar during the daily school-year Mass, and my brother and I used to play the ritual of a Mass – I wore a baby blanket for a vestment – I did not feel … a strong inclination to the priesthood.”

Still, Father Kohlmann filled out the application to that minor seminary and was accepted, attending four years of high school and two years of college. He recalled, “While in the college library, I noticed a picture on the cover of a “Glenmary Challenge,” published by the Glenmary Home Missioners. Several seminarians, or priests, were helping a disabled farmer in a field … If I would continue in the seminary that is where I wanted to go.

“Today, I look at it as a ‘fundamental option for the poor’ because it seemed to be an enduring principle that maintained itself through thick and thin over the years … It began to come to me that it is a focus the Church calls to all our attention, for it gives each of us to see a deeper poverty. It is present to all of our lives from the first moment of dependency when we were born into this world. An inherent reliance that could lead us to a heavenly Father.”

Though brief, Father Vernon’s experience with Glenmary, which began with the novitiate, has had a lasting effect. He explained that the charism of Glenmary Home Missioners is to establish a Catholic presence in rural areas and small towns, especially In Appalachia and the deep South, serving the needs of the Catholic minority, the unchurched and the poor, where poverty is twice the national level.

“The proclamation and witness to the Good News with a life that fostered community were at the center of that year’s experience,” recalled Father Kohlmann, noting, “For all my life’s happenings and inconsistencies, some things seemed to bear an enduring character. First, the early years of my life.  Second, going five hundred miles south for a picture on the cover of a magazine.  Third, the panorama of experiences during the time with Glenmary that fit so well with those opening years of the Second Vatican Council with its close attention to the Gospel and the meaning of community.

“It led me to weigh what Father Justin Russolillo, Society of Divine Vocations founder, sought to do … which was to revive and reclaim those whose vocations had seemingly been lost.”

Father Kohlmann, who holds certificates in teaching in Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Mississippi, as well as a certificate as a geriatric nursing assistant, took his first profession of vows with the Society of Divine Vocations in 1994, and concluded studies in Immaculate Conception Seminary, Seton Hall University, South Orange, in 1998.

Father Kohlmann was ordained to the priesthood on May 23, 1998. Since then, he has served in St. Nicholas Parish, Palisades Park; St. Michael Parish, Newark; Father Justin Vocationary, Florham Park; St. Cecelia Parish, Iselin, and was in residence, St. James Parish, Woodbridge, from 2021-2023. He has been reassigned to St. Patrick Church, Wareham, Mass.