“Do we have a duty to maintain Fraternal Ties with a Brother who no longer regularly attends Lodge Meetings or Masonic events?”

Freemasonry offers extraordinary opportunities to form and nourish the bonds of union and friendship. Yet sometimes a Brother who has not attended regularly for some period of time will feel as though the members have forgotten about him. His phone isn’t ringing like it once did, he’s no longer recruited to every impromptu gathering, and there may be any number of new Lodge members he doesn’t know particularly well. This can result in feelings of abandonment or even resentment. And yet, when he does find the time to attend a meeting or other event, he’s greeted as warmly as ever by the Brothers who know him, and they all say they wish to see him more frequently in Lodge.

The reason for this phenomenon is that the friendship was formed in the context of attending and participating in Lodge meetings and activities. These events create regular opportunities for the Brethren to come together with a common purpose that nourishes and sustains the relationships thus formed which, in turn, gives rise to occasions for the Brethren to come together outside of Lodge events. This is not dissimilar from friendships formed in a place of employment.

However, while this kind of institutionalized proximity can be helpful in forming and sustaining a friendship, it can make it difficult to maintain the same closeness when that external factor goes away. It’s not uncommon, for example, to fall out of touch with work friends after moving to a job at a different employer. It’s not that you’re not friends any more. It’s just that a kind of glue that held the relationship tightly together has gone away. Not every work friendship, regardless of how close, can survive that loss and remain the same.

But work is work. We want more out of the Fraternity. We expect our Masonic friendships to follow us all the way from Initiation to the grave. So what is to be done? And where does the responsibility lie? How can the relationship be restored to its former closeness? The answer is, with a reapplication of glue.

A Brother whose attendance and participation have waned should make a concerted effort to reengage with his Lodge. Perhaps circumstances have changed and he’s not able to be present as frequently as he once was. That’s okay. Once a month, or even every other month, can be enough to reenergize old friendships and form new ones. This is how community is created. Just as a lapsed work friendship can resume undiminished when a former colleague joins you at your present employer, you may be surprised at how quickly and easily a closeness with your Lodge and its Brethren can be reestablished simply by resuming participation.

The Lodge as well has its own responsibility with respect to the relationships formed within and among its Brethren. The members need to have a reason to attend Lodge meetings and activities other than loyalty, so intrinsic quality must be high. Moreover, both the Lodge as an institution and the members as individual Masons should work to stay in communication with those whose activities or circumstances have reduced their regular presence, and to encourage their return.

Both parties should recognize that when one Brother contacts another to solicit his participation in the life and works of their Lodge, he is saying, “I love you. I miss you. I want our closeness back.” With constancy and fidelity in our friendships, let us together discover the beneficial and happy effects of our ancient and honorable institution.

Freemasonry has often been described as “a beautiful system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.” Not all Freemasons may agree with this description – which is attributed to Dr. Samuel Hemming, c. 1820—and it may not tell the whole story, but it’s as good a place as any to start. The volume of Masonic Ritual and lecture that has accumulated and evolved over the centuries has offered us an almost inexhaustible source of material to teach the lessons of Masonry and learn the lessons of life. However, while our Rituals, symbols and allegories are among our great treasures, our method is not without its challenges for the Mason seeking enlightenment and knowledge. In fact, a central challenge arises from the very strength of the symbolic method: An emblem may symbolize one thing, but it may also symbolize many other things. It has even been said that the most powerful emblems are those to which many different meanings can be ascribed.

The emblems of Freemasonry are powerful indeed, and as a result they have given rise to a vast profusion of written work exploring and interpreting the higher meanings of our Rituals and emblems. These works have approached Masonry using perspectives as diverse as Kabballah, sacred geometry, Hermeticism, Christianity, Alchemy, legendary history, Eastern philosophy, mythology, Rosicrucianism, ceremonial magic and highly eclectic personal beliefs, to name but a few. The question therefore naturally arises as to which one is right and true, and the answer is as unsatisfying as it is brief: It depends.

I like to remind young Brothers that it’s incorrect to say “there are no wrong answers” or “all interpretation are equal” when interpreting Masonic Rituals, emblems and allegories. There are plenty of wrong answers and bad interpretations. Wrong answers and bad interpretations are those that are not grounded in a thorough knowledge of that which is answered or interpreted.

For example, if someone proclaims some “truth” about Masonry predicated on the assumption that the Masonic Altar is always situated in the middle of the Lodge room, this would be a “wrong answer” because it does not acknowledge that one of the largest Masonic traditions in the world does not use a centrally-located Altar, nor does it account for the fact that our own tradition only started using a centrally-located Altar sometime in the mid-1800s.

The good news is that there is an almost infinite number of “right answers” that can be built upon a solid basis of knowledge. Freemasonry can also be described as a journey of spiritual, intellectual and moral growth, so we should eagerly embrace opportunities to enrich our Masonic experience through the acquisition of knowledge. Just remember to be skeptical! If it seems too tidy to be true, it probably isn’t. Two starting places I recommend are David Stevenson’s The Origins of Freemasonry : Scotland’s Century”, which is more grounded in good scholarship than any other book on this subject, and Robert L.T. Cooper’s The Rosslyn Hoax”, which contains many of the most foundational texts with relevance to Freemasonry and also sets forth a good way of discerning an academic approach from a popular approach (hint: you want to read things written by those who adopt the former approach).

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.”