As part of my ordination candidature (or whatever I am attempting to call it this week) I've been given a few books to read. One is by Michael Ramsey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury back in the sixties, and is a collection of addresses given to men about to be ordained.
The book is in twelve sections, and I found the first seven pretty dull, to be honest. And then, halfway through the eighth ('Christ's Doctrine and Discipline' - for Heaven's sake!) it suddenly became alive. Here are a few bits that have got me all meditative:
Study gets very irksome if you think of it as adding more and more items of knowledge to your bag. Think of study rather as being refreshed from the deep, sparkling well of truth which is Christ himself.
Let those who are glad to be Catholics or Evangelicals or Liberals set themselves to learn all they can from one another, for the partisan can soon become a person who loves his own apprehension of the truth rather than Christ who is the truth, and himself more than either.
There is only one kind of person who makes God known and realized by other people, and that is the person who is humble because he knows God and knows God because he is humble. There is no substitute for this. It is only a humble priest who is authoritativelt a man of God.
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