The themes for this month’s Master’s Message are freedom, fervency and zeal:
Novelist Albert Camus wrote, “Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.” Freemasonry offers that very freedom, that very chance; alas at a price! That price is to choose to be a better man; that price is the courage to take an obligation to be something you were not previously. Meeting the expectations of that obligation requires effort. It requires service; it requires effort to pass on the valuable lessons to the next brother, it requires commitment. Freedoms to choose, to association, to keep confidences, to grow as men, these are the lifelong endeavors of a Master Mason.
Fervency is be defined as “the intensity of feeling”. When a new brother, as a seeker of personal growth or light, has his first Masonic epiphany, there is a certain quality to that moment that can only be experienced in the lodge room. The light quite literally comes on and a new way of viewing the true possibilities of a life of service to others as a pathway to personal happiness is found. That intense feeling or fervency, a desire to have and receive more of the same is the joy of Freemasonry. “The more you put into it, the more you get out of it”, are words spoken at nearly every pre-application meeting with the candidate. These are words of truth born through experience.
Got Zeal? The consequence of freedom is the gift of fervency; the effects of fervency are the actions of zeal. A zealot is an advocate, a believer a champion of a cause. Ours is a fraternity of attraction not promotion. Our stated mission is to help good men to become great men. This is accomplished through the lessons of the degrees and further through the example set by each and every just and upright Mason who leads his life accordingly. Zealousness does not mean boisterous, it means leading by example as an advocate for the tenets we uphold.
Best wishes for the New Year to all my brothers and their families!
John F. Sullivan, Master
