Angelus News | July 31-August 7, 2020 | Vol. 5 No. 21

Manuel Ramos
Age: 47
Hometown: San Pedro
Home parish: Holy Trinity Church, San Pedro
First parish assignment: St. Joseph Church,
Carpinteria
“Jesus Christ is here to heal and to
offer salvation and that’s something
I want to echo.”
VICTOR ALEMÁN
film. As for the call that still came to him from time to time?
“Unfortunately, I kept running from my vocation.”
That is until 2000, when Father Edward Benioff at Holy
Trinity encouraged him to take a more active role in his
faith, and it was then that he discovered a joy in ministry.
Before too long, he was a member of multiple ministries. The
satisfaction of not just thinking about his faith but performing
it “is what fueled my vocation,” he said.
In 2009, during a drive to Tijuana, Mexico, to visit his
grandmother, he heard “a distinct voice coming from deep
inside of me saying, ‘It’s time.’ ”
This time, he listened and soon entered the seminary.
He found a welcoming community willing to offer whatever
he needed, a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen to help him
break through all that had been holding him back.
“The truth is we’re all human beings with flaws, with broken
natures, and the task is to understand yourself, understand
your triggers, understand the flaws that you have,” he said.
“They were definitely there for me, you know, to help me to
get up when I had fallen down. These seven years there were
struggles, there were difficulties, there were health concerns
that I had to go through, but it wasn’t a path that I was walking
alone.”
His fellow seminarians’ kindness further confirmed to him
that real faith must be acted upon and provided to whoever
needs it, which, let’s face it, is everyone. He says he’ll emphasize
this message of an active faith at his new parish, St.
Joseph Church in Carpinteria.
“I think that’s the crux, getting involved, getting active,
becoming a part of the parish and not just sitting passively
waiting for the spirit to come to [you],” he said. “Jesus Christ
is here to heal and to offer salvation and that’s something I
want to echo. I want that to resonate from my ministry.”
Manuel Ramos admitted to being a “little naive” when
first entering the seminary, believing that those
he would be sharing this journey with came to it
armed with the innocence and certainty of “a community of
altar servers.”
It was therefore somewhat of a relief for him to discover that
his colleagues were far from any of that, that “the men that I
was surrounded with were great men, but they experienced
doubts, they experienced struggles and pressures, nonetheless.”
If Ramos didn’t have doubts growing up, he certainly could
overwhelm himself with conflicting thoughts. Raised in San
Pedro, a member of Holy Trinity Church, he said it was there
that he first heard the call to a vocation, but “like many men,
you have dreams of having a family, of having work, and so I
went the other way.”
That other way led him to Bishop Montgomery High
School and then UC Irvine, where he first majored in premed
only to do a complete 180 and change his emphasis to
Manuel Ramos on his diaconate ordination day with Bishop
Alex Aclan.
FACEBOOK VIA ST. JOHN'S SEMINARY
14 • ANGELUS • July 31-August 7, 2020