Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette photos Brothers in the priesthood: The Revs. Patrick (left), John (center) and Eugene Geinzer celebrate Mass together at Father John's church, St. Barbara Church on Prestley Road in Collier yesterday morning. Click photo for larger image.

When the Geinzer boys were growing up in Ingram in the 1940s and 1950s, their grandpa built them a miniature altar, nicely painted and equipped with its own imitation tabernacle. It wasn't the most popular toy in the Roman Catholic household of five boys and one girl, but it got a lot of use.

There was a little taste of childhood inside the sanctuary of St. Barbara Church in Collier yesterday when three of the boys, now in their 60s, came together on a full-sized altar as real priests concelebrating a Mass.

The Rev. Patrick Geinzer, 66, a member of the Passionist Community at St. Paul Monastery on the South Side, said the experience produced "a sense of awe." A nuclear medicine technologist until he was ordained a priest at the age of 54, "Father Pat" is the family's newcomer to religious life.

For the Rev. John Geinzer, 65, administrator at St. Barbara, the experience was "a quiet delight." Ordained in 1967 and assigned in March to the 1,500-member St. Barbara, Father John had served the past seven years as a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, most recently in Puerto Rico.

For the Rev. Eugene Geinzer, 63, a Jesuit priest on assignment as an art teacher in Beijing, China, his stint on the altar yesterday was "relaxing. ... I didn't have to do much" as he watched his older brothers "do what they do so well."

An artist, architect and priest ordained in 1974, "Father Gene" has taught at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and at Loyola University in Chicago. He has been on a brief vacation from his current assignment at the University of International Business an Economics in Beijing but is returning there today.

As boys, the three priests attended St. Philip Church in Crafton.

For the 400 or so congregants, including about 50 members of the Geinzer family, the brother priests hope it was "inspiring."

Yesterday was a unusual convergence for three brothers in the priesthood: Eugene, left; Patrick, center, and John Geinzer. "It's rare for us to be together. There's usually at least one of us out of the country," said Father John. Click photo for larger image.

"I hope it's an incentive for vocation recruitment to the priesthood and religious life," said Father John.

Yesterday wasn't the first time the brothers took center-stage as priests at the same time, but it hasn't happened frequently. They concelebrated Mass for a brother's funeral in 2003 and for a few family marriages, "but it's rare for us to be together. There's usually at least one of us out of the country," said Father John.

He said he believed his parishioners were "happily stunned" at the sight of three related priests standing before them yesterday.

The brothers say the influence of their parents' "relentless faithfulness," as Father John put it, ultimately influenced them.

Father Pat described his parents, who died in the mid-1970s, as "faithful Catholics who prayed always. My image of my father is on his knees every evening before bed. My mother collected these holy cards that had prayers on them.

"Once as a child, I took them off her dresser to look at all these prayers, and in the middle of the stack, there was a prayer of a mother for one of her sons to become a priest."

Though they weren't alive to see all three fulfill their religious calls, Father John said he believes his parents were looking down on them yesterday.

"I think they have a seat in the heavenly grand tier and they can see better than they did on the main floor of life," he said.