Remembering Sister Rita Ramos

Rest in Peace
Sister Rita Ramos
November 11, 1933 - August 6, 2024

Sister Rita Ramos passed away into eternal life on August 4, 2024 at 90 years of age. Her Funeral Mass and a Memorial luncheon were held on Saturday, August 24, 2024 at Mary, Seat of Wisdom Church in Park Ridge, Illinois.

Sister Rita was born on November 11, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois to Pedro Ramos and Lillian Skolski. Her father was born in the Philippines and her mother was from the U.S. of Polish decent. Rita was their only child. Her father became a U.S. citizen and worked as an electrical engineer.

From very early on, Rita loved her education, but due to her father’s work they had to move often, so she attended three Catholic grammar schools (St. Stanislaus Kostka, St. Helen, and St. Fidelis).

Regarding her First Communion Day, Rita wrote, “I walked skipping and jumping for joy because I knew something wonderful was going to happen . . . After receiving the ‘Eucharist’, my heart was filled with joy with the Real Presence.”

During her childhood years Rita was susceptible to various illnesses, including a bout with pneumonia, and two months in Children’s Memorial Hospital with rheumatic fever, among other illnesses.

Rita attended the Josephinum High School, and later entered Loyola University. During the summers, she worked as a hospital aide and as a sheet music clerk at Lyon and Healy. She took piano, voice and violin lessons.

Through a number of retreats, Rita experienced a growing understanding of God as self-less love. She wrote, “I saw how much He gave, and I wanted to love and give all that I could in return.” So in 1953 she entered the Sisters of Christian Charity, the Community of Sisters who were her high school teachers, and later professed her final vows on August 20, 1961.

Rita was an elementary school teacher for almost 20 years, followed by many years in pastoral ministry and teaching ESL. Her love for our Hispanic brothers and sisters moved her to enrich their own sense of leadership in a number of parishes, the latest being the community at Maternity BVM in Humboldt Park.

Rita’s first 15 years were a time of faithful conformity and regular prayer. With Vatican II she began to experience a renewal of religious life. She wrote that “The experience of spiritual direction and directed retreats proved a liberating process.” At the time of the separation from the Sisters of Christian Charity to a new community, Rita was undecided. However, through a retreat in which she felt Jesus calling her to walk out on the water in faith, she felt a peace in deciding to join the newly forming community. She has been grateful for “the liberating experience of her religious life,” as a Sister of the Living Word.

Sister Rita’s last years spent at Ascension Resurrection Life Center in Chicago, were years of more limited ministry. She managed staying in touch with people, encouraging leadership, and praying. Rita would often hang posters and reminders of important happenings outside her door. She was always in touch through her cell phone with the events of the day, and in prayer.

Rita’s last couple of years came with more illnesses, and pain due to her rheumatoid arthritis until finally she was called home to God. She was a faithful bearer of the Living Word to so many, and now is forever with God, the Creator, Son the Redeemer, the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier, the Trinity of Selfless Love.