Arthur Michael Ramsey

Arthur Michael Ramsey, 1904-1988

100th Archbishop of Canterbury

"...Give us grace and wisdom that like him we may know the Church

to be your Kingdom, the Sacraments to manifest your Presence,

and the Gospels to speak your Word..."

What words could do adequate justice to the memory of one who lived for 84 years, who honored God as a student, priest, husband, bishop, archbishop, teacher, speaker, social activist, theologian, and man of God?  Perhaps only a few quotations from the man himself.

"Reason is an action of the mind; knowledge is a possession of the mind; but faith is an attitude of the person. It means you are prepared to stake yourself on something being so." (Spoken to men about to be ordained.)

"To be an Anglican is to belong to a communion no longer limited by the English language or Anglo-Saxon culture."

"The Bible tells us very clearly that to "know" God is not an affair of the mind only, but an act in which our whole being – heart, mind, and will – is vitally engaged; so that sheer intellectual speculation would enable us to form certain ideas about God but never to know Him."

"The Christian's life is lived in the open, not in a pious cubby-hole. As Christ gives Himself to feed us, so we have to incarnate something of His all-loving, all-sacrificing soul. If we do not, then we have not really received Him. That is the plain truth. It has been said that there are many ways and degrees of receiving the Blessed Sacrament. It really depends on how wide we open our hearts. A spiritually selfish communion is not a communion at all."