Angelus News | June 3, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 11

RAMON JESUS
REYES
Age: 30
Hometown: Mid-City, Los Angeles
Home parish: St. Thomas the Apostle Church,
Pico-Union
Parish assignment: Incarnation Church,
Glendale
It’s not surprising to learn that Ramon Reyes first felt a
call to the priesthood while growing up in the Church.
The Church played a central role in his family: His
mother made sure that, even though he attended public
school, he attended Sunday Mass and weekly catechism
classes. His two older sisters worked at the parish. It was
all around him.
Perhaps surprising, then, is that it wasn’t necessarily the
parish priest whom he cites as the greatest example in
helping him discover a vocation to the priesthood. Rather,
it was the people the priest served.
Reyes with his sister’s family after the rite of institution of lector at St. John’s Seminary.
Reyes at a pilgrim stop along the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
“My call came from that, the examples of the people
who came to church; God was the main priority in their
lives,” he recalled.
Growing up in Los Angeles (in what he calls “LA LA,”
close to Mid-City), Reyes said that he was impressed by
parishioners who dealt with hard times, illness, and other
sufferings with faith. They were experiences he would
never forget.
“They still had this bright sense of their life — God
was central to that,” he said. “He called them, to their
families, to everyone in society. No matter what they had
to deal with, God was their first priority. At 14, 15 years
of age, you look at that, you want something like that,
something as stable, as defined as faith. I saw that faith in
them, I wanted that, I needed that.”
22 • ANGELUS • June 3, 2022