Promoting the Fraternity across the World
As wildfires blazed throughout Northern California, Masons and lodges banded together to make a difference. Marian McKenna – wife of Bro. Greg McKenna,…
The Spiritual Anatomy of Man and King Solomons Temple
The body of Freemasonry is comprised of many types of individuals whose Masonic pursuits vary according to that individual’s personality and interests. Freemasonry has been very aptly been compared to a complex tapestry composed of many colourful overlapping individual threads which taken as a whole form a larger picture.
The Mark is a ceremony or degree [sometimes called the ‘friendly’ degree], conferrable today only to Master Masons and forms part of a hierarchical organization. In Craft Masonry it was quite a late innovation making its appearance during the mid-1700s. However we do know that Operative Masons, without any kind of ceremony, were taking marks 150 years before the Mark came into use as part of that particular ceremony.
In our Masonic lodges we are apt to see or hear a piece of work that makes a great impression on us. Each degree in our respective rituals has special pieces that standout with unique beauty and meaning. I was intrigued while visiting a lodge some years ago when I saw a wonderful poem called “On Yonder Book” given as a charge after the third degree. Afterwards I asked the brother who had given it where it was from, but he had little information about it. I eventually received a copy from a friend from Ohio, who gives it to every newly raised MM in his lodge.
Today no one will deny the genius of Oscar Wilde. Yet during his own lifetime he was spurned and humiliated in spite of the success of much of his work. He was a victim of the society into which he was born. The Victorian middle-class, whose sacred institutions of morality Wilde was to infringe, simply had no patience or tolerance for him. The saddest of the tragedies that Wilde was to write could not match the events that were to unfold and Freemasonry, which did play a significant part during his time at Oxford
After a very happy and successful year in the chair of King Solomon, it was time for the WM Arthur Bartley to install his successor at the meeting of…
It was one of those autumnal evenings; you know the sort, one that is rather dreary with a chill in the air and the constant threat of drizzle; not the…
From Darkness to Light! Last Monday evening a demonstration team from the Custodes Copiae Chapter of Provincial Grand Stewards No 9430 delivered, for the…
Members and visitors of Barlow Moor Lodge No 4525 were most honoured and delighted in receiving Tony Harrison, Provincial Grand Master, to their installation meeting at Urmston Masonic Hall. Tony was accompanied by Mike Adams, (South Eastern Group Chairman) and fellow grand officers Brian Hayes, Chris McNab, David Durling (group vice chairman) and Gareth Jones along with Provincial Senior Grand Warden John Lee and Provincial Junior Grand Warden Jonathan Hall and acting Senior Grand Deacon Colin Ellis.