Two paths to holiness: Being a father and a Father

It’s quite a scene to witness such a rare transformation of one person who would be stepping from one responsibility to a new one; from once embracing the role as a father to becoming a Father.

Who would have thought that a married man, a father with three children — two boys and a girl — would take up the mantle of becoming a father of the church? Father Lambert Ramos, 66, had no words to describe the feeling of being ordained and now becoming a priest.

“How else can I describe the feeling? You can’t verbalize it,” he says. He explains that there are two ways that one can answer the universal call for holiness: One is by being a husband and a parent, and the other is by being a priest. “I’m just so plainly blessed that I am able to experience both!” he says happily.

Being both a priest and a father, Fr. Ramos now draws his experience from once becoming a husband and a parent to help him in his new journey in the diocese. It’s a journey that took 55 years in the making.

He was only 10 years old when the whole idea came before him. “The seed may have been planted by my mother, who was a very religious woman,” he recalls. He entered the seminary when he was in high school.

Eventually, he started teaching at an all-girls school where he would meet his wife, Vilma Ramos. This was when he thought, maybe the path to priesthood was not meant to him, well not yet, he thought.

Tragedy struck in 2009, when her wife contracted a cancer in the colon. Three days before she died, Fr. Ramos remembers how he held her, and apologized for not giving all the wealth that he promised her. Her wife told him “Lambert, if you become a priest, that is all the wealth that I wish.” According to him, perhaps this was one of the triggers that took him on the path to priesthood once again. “It was a dying wish,” he says.

What makes up a great father?

To Fr. Ramos, no amount of good words can convince a father or husband to do this or to do that in order to become a good parent. To him what you do, must be consistent with what you say.

His advice was to become both a father and a friend to their children. “You will not exercise your dominance and superiority over your children. How? By becoming their friend.

“In other words, as fathers we don’t own our children. We are custodians; we are asked to take care of our children so that in the future, they will become like us. If you do that, I’m sure there will be harmony in the family,” he adds.

Fr. Ramos also explains the importance of love, caring, and forgiveness, which he considers the thing that binds the family together. Having been a father in the past, he utilizes this experience in the parenting and family ministry in their church. He wants this to be a model for fathers and husbands. “Walang lamangan, walang pride, walang gantihan (No taking advantage of each other, no pride, no retaliation), just be patient with each other.”