Fr. German Ramos Reflects On His Path To The Priesthood: Listening Carefully To The Voice Of God

As Fr. German Ramos reflects on his path to the priesthood, he can see the hand of God in everything. Though his early faith journey followed a somewhat long and winding road with its fair share of obstacles, Fr. Ramos has no doubt that he is now right where the Lord intends him to be, serving the Church as a priest for the Diocese of Sacramento.

Fr. Ramos grew up in a small village in Mexico. While his parents were nominally Catholic, the faith was not a big part of their life. However, the family did attend Mass once a week when a priest came to their village, and Fr. Ramos received all of his Sacraments of Initiation.

With no access to an education beyond grade school available near his family home, Fr. Ramos went to live with his grandmother in a bigger town to attend high school. She asked that he go to Mass with her and join her for a daily Rosary. Soon, Fr. Ramos began to connect with his Catholic faith in a new way.

“Little by little, my grandmother was instilling in me that love for the Church and for my Catholic heritage,” he says. “The priest was offering Catholic formation, so I began to learn about the core tenets of Catholicism, the history of the Church and the sacraments. I realized I had been missing so much — the Church gives us so much!”

As Fr. Ramos was growing in faith, he was distressed by the young people in his school who seemed to turn their backs on this great gift.

“I was going through high school and I began to see a lot of bad things,” he says. “My classmates were having premarital sex and they were doing drugs. They weren’t determined to focus on their studies and to eventually become something in life. I knew that wasn’t what I wanted for myself — I wanted a mission and a purpose in life. I began to cherish and appreciate my faith and the Catholic Church.”

As his involvement in the Church increased, Fr. Ramos found more and more people were encouraging him to consider a vocation to the priesthood. Thanks to a weeklong seminary retreat, he realized that priesthood was the vocation that would make him fulfilled and happy. Having witnessed so many of his peers going astray during their high school years, Fr. Ramos had a great desire to facilitate the spiritual help and support they needed for a conversion of heart.

As high school graduation neared, Fr. Ramos had discerned a strong vocation to the priesthood. However, that didn’t mean that his path there was getting any easier.

“My father disliked the idea that I wanted to become a Catholic priest and said if I went to seminary, he would disown me,” he says. “On the one hand, I was so overjoyed and happy that God had shown me the way, but on the other hand, I was so deeply saddened and heartbroken because my father was so opposed to my decision. But I’m so glad that I had that courage, that spiritual strength to do what God was asking me to do. It was a tough decision, but the best decision.”

Following his high school graduation, Fr. Ramos attended minor seminary in Mexico. During his first year of philosophy, a priest from Sacramento visited his seminary and told the men there that the Lord needed courageous young people to serve the Church in the United States. After a year of daily prayer for guidance on his decision, Fr. Ramos ultimately discerned God’s call to come serve in our diocese.

Arriving in the U.S., Fr. Ramos attended Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon, where he faced the challenge of taking classes in a new language. Within in a year, he was speaking, reading and writing in English, and he graduated with honors.

Following his ordination on June 2, 2018, Fr. Ramos was sent to serve his first assignment as a priest at St. Clare Parish in Roseville. There, he greatly enjoyed the multicultural community and discovered a passion for serving the homebound.

“I realized that we had a lot of people in need of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick,” he says. “These people were quarantined even before pandemic — they were forgotten, abandoned. So every week, we would visit the sick and pray with them, encourage them, have a conversation with them, and just try to show them the merciful face of Christ. I really learned a lot from my ministry to the homebound and the bedridden.”

Fr. Ramos was happy to be assigned to St. Patrick last September. He knew Fr. Estrella from seminary and has enjoyed working with him. He has also loved getting to know the faith community here.

“I have met wonderful Catholics here who are dedicated to the church and to their community,” he says. “They care a lot about their priests. I know that they pray for their priests, and I also have seen that they have a tremendous appreciation for what Fr. Estrella and I do.”

On his off days, Fr. Ramos can often be found outdoors, hiking or paddleboarding. He also calls his mother daily and spends a good part of his day off on the phone catching up with her. Knowing the important influence of parents in the early faith life of children, he encourages all Catholic families to prioritize a Catholic education for their kids, especially in light of some of the indoctrination taking place in the public schools.

Fr. Ramos traces his call to the priesthood, in large part, to the distressing behaviors and youth culture he witnessed in his high school. To any young person who is discerning their place in the Catholic Church — and especially a vocation to the priesthood — he offers some inspiration from St. John Paul II.

“The words of St. John Paul II resonate with me — ‘do not be afraid,’” Fr. Ramos says. “I believe that the Church has a lot to offer to young people, but I think the mainstream culture has undermined the genius of our faith, the greatness of Catholicism. So I would say, do not be afraid, do not follow the voice of the world. Listen carefully to the voice of God that is echoing and resonating in your heart.”

Here at St. Patrick, we certainly feel blessed that this servant of God was courageous enough to answer the call to priesthood and come to the Diocese of Sacramento as a missionary priest!

Fr. German Ramos was happy to be assigned to St. Patrick last September. He knew Fr. Estrella from seminary and has enjoyed working with him. He has also loved getting to know the faith community here.

Fr. German Ramos (center) with (from left) Bishop Weigand, Fr. Hernandez, Fr. Jauregui, and Bishop Soto.