Remembering Lou Tarsitano

To all my friends and correspondents:

Greetings in the week of Septuagesima as we head for Sexagesima and the preparation for Lent continues.

As most of you know, Lou Tarsitano died at home under hospice care on Saturday 15th January 2005, age 53. His mortal remains are now buried in the family grave in Chicago. His heart, which had been diseased for 9 years after a viral infection, simply stopped working.

I miss and shall miss a most valued colleague with whom I shared many thoughts and wrote many pages on the Web, in magazines, to people asking questions and in books. We believe he is enjoying the sound of the great angelic choirs, praising and magnifying the Blessed, Holy and Undivided Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (Ghost not Spirit, as Lou often emphasized).

Below are the titles of four books that we wrote together:

THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. THE ANGLICAN WALK WITH JESUS CHRIST, St Peter Publications, Box 713, Charlottetown, P.E.I.,Canada, 1988, 116 pages

DEAR PRIMATES; A MESSAGE...CONCERNING THE ANGLICAN WAY IN AMERICA, St Peter Publications, Canada, 1990, 128 pages

NEITHER ARCHAIC NOR OBSOLETE; THE LANGUAGE OF COMMON PRAYER AND PUBLIC WORSHIP, Prayer Book Society of the USA, P O Box 35220, Philadelphia, PA 19128-03220, & Edgeways Books of the UK, 2004, 96 pages (ISBN 0907839754)

NEITHER ORTHODOXY NOR A FORMULARY: THE SHAPE AND CONTENT OF THE 1979 PRAYER BOOK OF ECUSA, Prayer Book Society, 2004,108 pages

The last two are easily available by calling 1-800-727-1928 in the USA or visiting www.anglicanmarketplace.com or writing to Philadelphia.

I particularly urge you, in memory of Lou, to order a copy of the Book on language for he was particularly proud of it, in the sense that it puts forth a case for the nature & use of the classic English language of prayer which is virtually unanswerable (but which is totally ignored by those who press only for so-called modern English Liturgy). People in the UK etc can buy directly from Edgeways Books (www.edgewaysbooks.com)

His own book, a kind of expanded Catechism, AN OUTLINE OF ANGLICAN LIFE, is available from the Publications Dept of the Reformed Episcopal Church.

The Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A. plans to publish in 2005 a book of essays by Lou. These will be in commendation of the classic Anglican Way. Also it expects to print several pieces by him in a forthcoming issue of The Mandate.

In my judgment, he possessed the clearest, traditional Anglican mind that I had the privilege of encountering in the USA from 1991-2005.

Let us pray for his wife, Sally, daughter and two sons, plus Grandma, who lived with them. As they live in a church rectory, they will have to move soon. May the Lord bless them and keep them....

Thank you for your interest and prayer.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge