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Master Mason Education
Introduction
You have just been raised to the Sublime
Degree of Master Mason. It is indeed a "sublime" degree, which a man may
study for years without exhausting. In the First and Second Degrees you were
surrounded by the symbols and emblems of architecture. In the Third Degree
you found a different order of symbolism, cast in the language of the soul
--- its life, its tragedy, and its triumph. To recognize this is the first step in
interpretation of this sublime and historic step in so-called "Blue Lodge"
Masonry.
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The second point is to recognize that the Third Degree has many
meanings. It is not intended to be a lesson complete, finished, or closed.
There are many interpretations of the Degrees. But most essentially, it is a
drama of the immortality of the soul, setting forth the truth that, while a
man withers away and perishes, there is that in him which perishes not.
That this is the meaning most generally accepted by the Craft is shown by
our habits of language. We say that a man is initiated an Entered
Apprentice, passed to the degree of Fellowcraft, and raised a Master Mason.
By this it appears that it is the raising that most Masons have found to be
the center of the Master Mason Degree.
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Evil in
the form of tragedy is set forth in the drama of the Third Degree. Here is a
good and wise man, a builder, working for others and giving others work, the
highest we know, as it is dedicated wholly to God. Through no fault of his
own he experiences tragedy from friends and fellow Masons. Here is evil pure
and simple, a complete picture of human tragedy. How did the Craft meet this
tragedy? The first step was to impose the supreme penalty on those who had
possessed the will of destruction and therefore had to be destroyed lest
another tragedy follow. The greatest enemy man has makes war upon the good;
to it no quarter can be given.
The next step was to discipline and to pardon those who acted not out of an
evil will, but one of weakness. Forgiveness is possible if a man himself
condemns the evil he had done, since in spite of his weakness he retains his
faith in the good.
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The next step was to recover from the wreckage caused by the
tragedy whatever value it had left undestroyed. Confusion had come upon the
Craft; order was restored. Loyal Craftsmen took up the burdens left by
traitors. It is in the nature of such tragedy that the good suffer for evil
and it is one of the prime duties of life that a man shall toil to undo the
harm wrought by sin and crime, else in time the world would be destroyed by
the evils that are done in it.
But what of the victim of the tragedy? Here is the most profound and
difficult lesson of the drama. It is difficult to understand, difficult to
believe if one has not been truly initiated into the realities of the
spiritual life. Because the victim was a good man, his goodness rooted in an
unvarying faith in God, that which destroyed him in one sense could not
destroy him in another. The spirit in him rose above the evil; by virtue of
it he was raised from a dead level to a living perpendicular. |
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