Richard Tarsitano ⚓️

If interested in the Anglican Way, go back to the sources. Read Hooker, Jewel, Cranmer, Donne, Taylor, Waterland, Latimer, Andrewes, Cosin, Tyndale, Hooper, Ridley, Ken, Hall, Ussher, Beveridge, etc. Find a beautiful tradition forged in conflict, ready for the challenges of today

March 21, 1556: After denying earlier forced recantations, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, a crucial figure in the English Reformation and author of the Book of Common Prayer, is burned at the stake by Queen Mary. He reportedly thrust his arm into the flames, saying the hand that had signed the recantations should be the first to burn.

Arthur Guinness, inventor of Guinness stout, was an Irish Protestant (Anglican) who invented the low-ABV beer to reduce consumption of gin which was destroying Ireland and Britain. Protestant work ethic and ingenuity wins again.

I have made some significant upgrades to the traditional BCP parishes project. Find the updated maps and data-entry forms below.

Audio and text of the Sunday sermon from Trinity Anglican Church (Connersville, IN) Link Below "The first step to salvation, the first step to being among the true sons of promise is to know we are all barren, but blessedly, God gives life to the barren. God looked upon the barren, childless Sarah: guilty of unbelief, pride, jealousy, and attempted murder; He looked upon her, and He united her to the Trinity’s world saving mission by giving her the son of promise. He gave her a life she didn’t deserve because God keeps His promises. The salvation of the world took its first step forward through a tiny heartbeat inside the womb of an old woman given up for dead. That heartbeat would grow up to be the man Isaac and from him would come generations of men and women, each in their own way a living testimony to the throbbing, human need for salvation. Until another woman, clothed in her virginity, was blessed with the new life which would take away all barrenness—the son of promise who came to reverse the fall of man, to restore the garden of creation, to create new life in us where men see only death. It is Jesus Christ’s resurrected glory which changed St. Paul from persecutor to martyr, and it is Christ’s resurrected glory which should lead all of us barren, unfruitful, human deserts to join in with prophets and apostles, saying, “Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband” (Galatians 4:27). God’s grace is for the barren, and so the barren can now rejoice. We can rejoice instead of worrying, we can rejoice instead of complicating our lives with all the fruitless pursuits of our neighbors, we can rejoice and know that Christ has promised life to those who believe; He has promised everything to those who are free. By God’s grace, we are the sons and daughters of promise, and by God’s grace we are free."

@wyclif Wow, praying for you.

I didn't want to say too much about this until now, but on Friday night I survived a vicious stabbing and robbery attempt while walking home after dark at around 9pm. Two masked men riding tandem on a motorbike; one of them got off the bike and pulled a knife on me.

Audio and text of the Sunday sermon from Trinity Anglican Church (Connersville, IN): "So, maybe before we look askance at St. Paul and think we modern people have all this figured out, we should recognize that we stand fairly well condemned as a nation, as a people, and as a society before the sexual ethic God reveals in His Word. The great tragedy of our settling for smut, one-night stands, and pretend marriages is what we are giving up. Against the common slander often leveled against Christians, St. Paul doesn’t tell us to be ashamed of the true love that glorifies God and man. Instead of shame and guilt, we are to replace our desire for darkened conversations and our hunger for sexually compromised stories with “thanksgiving.” Instead of using the destructive sins of others or ourselves to numb us to the real terrors of the fallen world, we are called to give thanks for the real love God has placed in our lives. And, I don’t even mean just that of a sexual nature. Our culture’s dreary focus on sex as the thing that most defines one as a person has robbed us of the joy of friendship: real, self-giving friendship between people who have no ulterior motives, real friendship that seeks nothing but to give and give and give some more because we recognize that whatever we give of ourselves in this world will pale in comparison to what we have and will receive from the Lord of the Ages. This far richer tapestry of love, most perfectly represented by God the Son loving humanity as we murdered him on a cross, will always be more complicated and alien to us than the simple slogans and suffocating half-truths of our enemies, but the people of God must not trade the beautiful colors of that lush tapestry for the monochromatic dreariness of a cheap motel towel. We are called to live our lives in color, in communion, and in thanksgiving.  St. Paul wants us to choose the tapestry, not the towel." Link Below

@PresbyInn Dave Brubeck Quartet!!

Jazz is one of the first distinctly American musical styles and it's great. Start here. Then you either get it or you don't.

Again, this a novel interpretation of "The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped." We see the exact solution to this problem addressed in the Book of Common Prayer where it provides a special service for "The Communion of the Sick" wherein a fresh consecration takes place. Here, we again witness the wonderful through-line from the article to application in the services of the Book of Common Prayer. Disrupting that harmony is not the absolute end of the world, and many souls have certainly been comforted, but there are solutions which maintain that harmony better.

The altar of repose (Maundy Thursday to Good Friday) is common in many Episcopal parishes (including my own!), but does it fit within an Anglican sacramental framework?

Audio and text of the Sunday sermon from Trinity Anglican Church (Connersville, IN): "Her reply to Jesus should be familiar to us all, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” In the ancient world, calling oneself a dog was not flattering or cute. This phrase is one of humility and abasement, and as she kneels before the God who has humbled and abased Himself by becoming one of us, whose future holds the humiliation of the cross, our Lord recognizes one of His own. He sees in her reply the faith which can only come from the Holy Ghost. A faith Jesus describes as a “mega” faith. And so, our Lord gives her the scraps from His table; He heals her daughter. And mind you, these are scraps, for just as the glorious medicine of immortality we will experience at each Lord’s Supper is only a foretaste of the endless wedding feast to come, so too is this miraculous healing merely a paltry morsel compared to the endless restoration and reconciliation of the new life to come. The healing Jesus provides for this faithful woman points to a future in which Gentiles from every tribe will be welcomed into the people of God to receive a permanent healing. Jesus recognizes, just as He did with the centurion, that this woman is a harbinger of that future glory."

@saintbeorn Tasty? I'm afraid I am a bit out of my field. I've been told it is a cross between a British pub ale and a Belgium abbey ale.

@GodRemembrancer What style is it

The ale the men of the church brewed is finished! Give me your best ideas for a name.

Link Below "And so when you put it like that, the ACNA is the Reconquista. TEC is the Almohad Caliphate. (And before you balk at the comparison, I know of at least one occasion where TEC sold a building to a literal mosque rather than allow the original orthodox parish to buy it back.) The ACNA is small. It’s got its back against the wall. A few dioceses have been able to keep their ancestral lands and buildings. Others have had to cede the territory as they retreated in order to live to fight another day. The ACNA is the orthodox version of the national Anglican body in the United States. It’s got problems, sure. There is a certain amount of dysfunction. But it’s still fighting, and the future is not yet written. I’m also in an optimistic mood for the ACNA right now. In the aftermath of the “Safe Church” cancellation, Bishop Julian Dobbs hosted an open Zoom meeting for people to ask questions. Someone asked how he was going to ensure that we don’t continue to have our fundamental values undermined in the ACNA. Bishop Julian’s answer was phenomenal. He said that A) the ACNA’s doctrinal center of gravity is already fixed and it is the historic Anglican formularies, acting as a faithful interpretation of Holy Scripture, B) the 39 Articles of Religion especially state our doctrine and reinforce the authority and integrity of the Scriptures, C) the Ordinal requires clergy, especially bishops, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines. When is the last time an Episcopal or Anglican churchman in the United States made those sorts of claims in an official capacity? We might have to go back as far as Bishops Meade or McIlvaine. It’s incredible."