Is there more than one way to Exemplify the Catechism Lectures?

Brothers visiting another Lodge on a Degree night for the first time are sometimes surprised to see the catechism lectures exemplified in a way that’s quite different from how the Work may be performed in their Mother/Home Lodge/Jurisdiction.

Students of Masonic Ritual inevitably note that the early manuscripts and exposures always present the Work in catechism form—which is to say, in a series of questions and answers. This was how the symbolic content of the Degrees as well as descriptions and explanations of Masonic practices were communicated to the Brethren at that time, and it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the catechisms began to be combined and expanded into what we know today as the long narrative Degree lectures. The answers to the old catechism lectures might be provided by one Brother, but especially during the era in which Lodges met in taverns and similar accommodations, the questions were more commonly posed “around the table” while the Brethren took refreshment during the second section of the Degree.

Our Ritual today contains traces of this old tradition in the few catechism lectures that remain in our Standard Work and Lectures: the Lectures of Forms and Ceremonies in each of the three Degrees and the Lecture of Reasons in the Entered Apprentice Degree. Nowadays, these catechism lectures are usually performed by two Brothers exchanging rapid-fire questions and answers in an effort to get through what can often be the least interesting part of a Degree conferral as quickly as possible.

But a return to the older tradition of group exemplification offers the possibility of a different way to perform these lectures that is at once more entertaining and educational. When the answers are given by a larger number of Brothers, the different voices and styles of delivery provide novelty and variety that help refresh the mind and refocus attention at the end of a long Degree night. Meanwhile, the simple act of expanding participation in the catechism lectures draws more Brothers into the Lodge’s Ritual traditions and educates them in some of the most basic and yet frequently neglected or forgotten elements of Masonic knowledge. It’s also a great way for Entered Apprentices and Fellowcrafts to demonstrate their proficiency to the Lodge at large.

It remains for each Lodge to determine the method and format of exemplification that works best, giving due consideration to its resources, personnel and constraints. At my Lodge, Mariners Lodge No. 67, we have enjoyed a return to the old ways not only in group exemplifications of the catechism lectures, but in our “Tavern Style” Degree conferrals. This is part of our Lodge’s ethos to be “ancient but not old.”