About Archbishop Ramsey

It was in March 1967 that as his Senior Chaplain I came to have a look at Nashotah House for Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been invited to receive an Honorary Doctorate. The place strongly resembles our alma mater, Cuddesdon, and I lost no time in telling him that he might well enjoy his visit.

He came that summer, and for him and for Joan his wife it was the beginning of a love affair they had, and relished through the next twenty years of his life. The peace and the apartness from the blatant busyness of urban concerns always was important in his estimation for people called to train for priesthood. They need time to think deeply; to pray quietly; to read unrestrictedly, he would say.

His forthcoming retirement in 1974 gave the Dean and Faculty the chance to ask me early that year how best to approach him with an invitation to teach. He took the bait and Nashotah landed him in 1975, the first of many long stays at the House where he took his place humbly as an adjunct professor, enjoying doing what he loved best in all the world, after worshipping. He loved teaching young minds. He loved making friends with students and their families. He loved the setting for all this, seeing in the American souls he taught a vitality and a readiness—an eagerness—to learn and to share what the years had provided him to give. All in that incomparable setting of the countryside.

The chapel pleased him deeply. He found he could pray and meditate in it. The disciplined worship appealed to him. The structure of his days upheld him and kept him supple. The additions to the Library thrilled him, enabling him to indulge his passion for reading and sustained study. He became loyal to the aspirations of the House, venerating its history and the saintly souls who had been teachers and students at it. The lectures and discussions he gave were valued for their simplicity, their godliness, their balance and depth. The joys and sorrows of the Nashotah family were shared by him and Joan, who loved the place as he did.

His increasing blindness and physical weakness meant an end to his traveling. It pained him to have to lay aside the mantle Nashotah had so lovingly placed about those great shoulders of his, and to the very end he prayed for the place, grieved for any hurts it sustained, talked about personalities within it to me when I saw him after Easter.

Nashotah can claim him as one of her greatest; +Michael loved the place tenderly and we can be certain his strong prayers continue for it, rejoicing as he must be with the saints who founded it and peopled it and gave it its holiness.

May he rest in peace.