Thank you worful brother I want to thank you for inviting me to be here with you Brothers this evening uh as Ryan indicated my name is Joe Kendall I know most of you but there’s a few new faces here I am a past master of collegium rdus austera number 779 here in
Nashville and I am presently a member of Lexington lodge number one in Lexington Kentucky uh which is where I went through my degrees not at that Lodge but in Kentucky um and Ryan had asked me to come here and talk to you as as we said a little
Bit about the feast day of St John why we Feast why we celebrate the Feast days of St of St John and I’m going to actually look into that both in kind of a historical and I think frankly more importantly symbolic reason as to why we
Observe these feast days uh and kind of why we feast masonically in general as a opposed to just eating we’ve all just eaten at lodge and there’s nothing wrong with just eating at lodge but there is something very special and very uniquely Masonic about the type of feasting that
We’re talking about here so we’ll uh talk a little bit about that in here and then we’ll go out there and we’ll experience it and and I think there are some brothers here who might have experienced something like that before but I think for most of us it’s it’s
Going to be something a little bit new if you’re interested in seeing a little bit what this looks like about this time last year my older son and I went up to Lexington uh to my Lodge which spent the better part of a weekend filming a documentary film called the Masonic
Table that outlines why we Feast how we feast and some of the general practices that movie was released just a couple weeks ago on Amazon Prime so if you want to check that out it’s available for you I don’t get any money off of that so
That plug doesn’t put any dollars in my pocket uh but it may if you enjoy this evening that maybe someplace you can go uh look for a little bit more uh indepth uh information on that uh so may need to wake this up because it’s not advancing nope it’s not there we go
There we go all right so first off why do we Feast okay why do we celebrate these feast days uh particularly on the dates that we do the feast day of St John the Baptist on June 24th and the feast day of St John the Evangelist on December
27th was telling a brother outside I always struggled to remember which one was which which Feast Day belonged to John the Baptist which one belonged to John the Evangelist um as I said before I grew up in Kentucky I was baptized in the Ohio River brother I would much
Rather be baptized on the 24th of June then on the 27th of December so that’s the way that I recall which one is which well the reason why one of the reasons why one of these feast days is important to us is because of what happened on
June 24th 1717 this was 305 years ago and three days on that date four lodges three of them from London and one from Westminster assembled at the goose and grid iron Tavern notice I’ve got the four lodges listed here they’re goose and grd iron Lodge Crown Ale House apple tree Tavern and
Rum and grapes Tavern notice a few things that are different about the names of these lodges first and foremost is they have no numbers well they have no numbers because they weren’t formed under a grand lodge where numbers were relevant or organized so they were just given lodges just named themselves and
They named themselves after the taverns where they met all four of those those Lodge names are actually the names of taverns or ale houses where these lodges met uh they gathered at Apple Tree Tavern sometime in 1716 to plan this event that would happen on the feast day
Of St John the Baptist the following year at which point these four lodges came together and formed what was then known as the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster the top three lodges were London lodges the bottom one rumber and grapes was from Westminster and iron interestingly enough the top three
Lodges were primarily operative lodges those were primarily Lodges of operative Masons whereas rummer and grapes was a primarily speculative Lodge so when we think of the early Grand Lodge period there’s still this very much this counterbalance between operative and speculative masonry going on we’ve had speculative masonry going on for at
Least a while because we have records of speculative Masons receiving their degrees in England as early as the 1640s but there a lot of the Masonic lodges that were functioning at this time were still in fact primarily operative in nature so what were they trying to accomplish well they had a number of
Goals in coming together on this date to form a Grand Lodge one of them was to to elect a grandm and that uh honor fell on a fellow named Anthony Seer the other thing that they meant to do was to establish that there would be an annual meeting and this is an annual
Meeting not of the constituent lodges that made up this Grand Lodge but this is the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster and that annual meeting was to be held every year on the feast day of St John the Baptist one of the other things and they had a
Number of things that they were trying to accomplish here I’m just pulling out some of the highlights one of the other things that they were trying to accomplish was to reestablish reestablish the observation of the annual Feast this tells us two things it tells us that there was a pre-existing
Custom of having an annual Feast on the feast day of St John the Baptist because that’s when these lodes meant to do it it also tells us that it had fallen out of custom to some degree and they were trying to reestablish it as a matter of
Fact they uh we don’t have direct minutes from this the closest we have to this meeting is uh recordings of events by uh James Anderson in his Constitution to 1723 but he details some of the things that were that were done some of the regulations that were issued and so on
Uh it authorized this new Grand Lodge to hold other meetings more frequently it recommended for example that uh they they also have uh meetings on the feast day of St John the Eva the Evangelist which happened very soon thereafter and to have other such regular meetings uh
As they would would like I I believe they very quickly settled on kind of a quarter meeting process uh but two of those fell on the feast days of the Saints John as we know today the jewel in the middle is the tricentennial jewel uh that the
Grand Lodge the United Grand Lodge of England issued five years ago when they were celebrating their tricentennial now this is the feast day of St John the Baptist that we’re primarily talking about here with these London and Westminster lodges but if we want to look just a little bit
To the north into Scotland we are uh we see that the lodges in Scotland were governed by a series of documents that are referred to as the shaw statutes okay this the first Shaw statute was written in 1598 interestingly enough it was dated December 28th 1598 one day
After the feast day of St John the Evangelist now the lodges in Scotland really ested the idea of a Grand Lodge early on they they were not real happy about this idea of a governing body over them they’re very fiercely Scottish um but the the the shaw statutes are primarily rules to govern
The operative Masonic lodges and they these were primarily operative Masonic lodges functioning in Scotland at the time and they tended in these operative Scottish lodges in Scotland to really be more focused on the St John the Evangelist in fact in many cases they were solely dedicated to St
John the Evangelist we talk about our loges being dedicated to to both Saints John Scottish constituted lodges were generally at this time dedicated to St John the Evangelist and one of the reasons for that stems from the Scottish patronage of the Edinburgh lodes being devoted to St John the
Evangela so in Edinburgh there is a Cathedral of St Giles which was built in like the 1100s and within the Cathedral of St Giles is a chapel to St John the Evangelist this was constructed by the operative Scottish masons in Edinburgh in the late 1300s I believe it was
1395 so into the early 15 you know late 14th and very early 15th century these operative Masonic lodges functioning in Scotland were charged with not just the building but the Perpetual upkeep of the Chapel to St John the Evangelist and so I think it’s pretty clear that this is
Why they draw drew at least in around Edinburgh their patronage to the to St John the Evangelist um yep to illustrate this EV John the Evangelist John the Baptist and so on you have to really it’s it’s from a historical perspective it’s really rooted in the operative nature of these lodges
This is particularly the case in Scotland so if you look at those Shaw statutes that I referenced a couple of slides back like I said those were guides for how the operative lodges were supposed to function and operate but in in in Great Britain as a whole they at
This time period they they held to something that it referred to as quarter days has anybody ever heard of the concept of quarter days because it was it’s a fairly foreign concept to us but it’s the idea that certain business is transacted at given days of on the
Calendar year and by business I’m talking about the hiring of servants the commissioning of large public works or Cathedrals or chapels or this type of thing the paying of rent this is when rent you didn’t pay rent every month rent was due on the quarter day okay uh
Stuff like that uh we talk about statutes of limitations on legal matters these were tied to quarter days okay you had you had to resolve an issue before the quarter day was over or else it it you know it would extend expand its uh um uh statute of limitation and so on so
If you look at these staw statutes and there are a number of them they talk about the the making of apprentices and so on on mckel mass okay uh mckel mass is one of the quarter days and it’s also known as the feast of St Michael and all angels and not a holiday
Or feast day that we’re terribly accustomed to here in in the US uh the opposing quarter day to mckel mass was the Feast of anunciation or lady day and as you can tell from this if you can read the text in the center these quarter days fell on what we know as the
Solar quarters the Sol es and the equinoxes and so for that reason you can see that since the quarter days were applied to debts and building projects and hiring Etc that these operatively focused lodges were kind of focused on them and while the ones in Scotland were
Focused on St John the Evangelist and one in ones in England tended to be focused more on St John the Baptist but they have an operative route to them okay um however as we see that 1717 date approaching uh even in Scotland things started to change there’s kind of an overarching shift
Towards uh something a little bit different so by the early 1700s by like 1701 uh there’s another L there’s a a couple of lodges that we have minutes from in the early 1700s 1701 1706 where they start to shift away from this pairing of Mel Mass with St John
The Evangelist in Scottish lodges and replacing ml Mass with St John the Baptist so they’re coming a little bit more into line into line with their English operative brothers and then after the events of 1717 the most famous documentation that we have concerning that early Grand Lodge
Period is written and published by James Anderson in 1723 the Constitutions of the Freemasons this is about a 90 page document okay the first half of it little over half of it is a traditional history of Freemasonry and I’m I’m I’m going to put that in quotations because what it
Actually is titled that that part of it I I don’t think you can yeah you can’t see it on this is the the the first half of this uh of this document is called the traditional history of Masonry from the creation throughout the known Earth and he traces the history of
Masonry all the way back to Adam and we’ll go through line you get Nimrod and and and and all of these again I I emphasize the word traditional in this history Brothers this is like reading your history books about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree this is traditional folk
History not authentic actual history and I would caution you when you read these and you’re reading the history of Freemasonry from Anderson understand that that’s very much a traditional history but one thing that is evident by 1723 in this is that he is making a lot of references to meetings of Masons on
Or about both the feast day of St John the Baptist and the feast day of St John the Evangelist so Anderson Constitution is where we really start to see this kind of emergence in a documentary form of St John the Baptist and St John the EV the evangelists coming together as
Being relevant and important to these Masons of the early Grand Lodge period of the early 18th century uh the feast day was not something that was suggested it was required specifically that feast day of St John the Baptist in those early uh days of the Grand Lodge of London and
Westminster it was a requirement that was essentially their grand lodge meeting they would meet they would elect a new grand master or reelect the sitting Grandmaster one of the some of the very few powers granted to the Grand Lodge in that early uh in those early days was the
Power and responsibility of organizing and conducting that annual Feast okay Grand Lodge didn’t really have a lot of direct control over the individual sub you know subordinate lodges their main area of effort and exertion was in the celebration of the feast days at their annual meetings so that’s kind of a general
Idea of why from a historical perspective we re we reference and reverence the Saints John both of them but let’s talk a little bit about the more symbolic rationale and meaning behind the observance of these feast days and these Saints we’re all familiar with this symbol here right the point within the
Circle bounded by two parallel lines each associated with one of the Saints John here’s the problem though Brothers the explanation that we give of this symbol Falls flat at best we talk about how our ancient Brethren dedicated their lodges to King Solomon well maybe frankly there are
Still a whole lot of lodges across this planet that still dedicate their lodges to King Solomon so that’s not something that happened in the past it’s still happening today three centuries after the formation of this Grand Lodge at least um it also indicates that since the Advent of Christianity all Christian
Countries in all Christian countries we dedicate our lodges to the holy Saints John well that doesn’t hold water either because we haven’t been meeting as Freemasons since before the Advent of Christianity that came along long before we started meeting certainly as speculative Masons much less operative Masonic guilds
So it’s a very cursory explanation of what this symbol means and it’s kind of full of historical inaccuracy now I’ve been a student of masonic symbolism for as long as I’ve been a Freemason and it’s been my experience that when you find errors in Masonic ritual and I’m not talking
About opinions that you may disagree with or stances on particular topics I mean factual disprovable errors in Masonic ritual or explanation they can only be there for one of two reasons they’re either there because the brothers that wrote them didn’t know what they were talking about and if
You’ve read Masonic ritual you know that that’s that doesn’t fit these were smart educated intellectual men when there are errors I believe they’re there intentionally to make us dig deeper so that we can have a deeper understanding of what the symbol actually means if you’re satisfied with the explanation
That’s given fine if you’re if you look at it and go wait a minute that’s not right maybe just maybe that was the point in the first place there’s no symbol I think that that more adequately describes that problem than the 47th Problem of uclid literally every word of
Our explanation of that symbol is wrong every word so if you dig deeper you can find out what that symbol actually means and I think the same thing is going on here so let’s tear it down just a little bit and I’m not going to get too far in the weeds with this
But at the center of this particular emblem is the point within the circle okay now we described this as being the as as the individual point being you me the individual Mason and if we take the compasses and let one point of the compasses represent the individual and
We set the boundary line for how far we want to be able to go and transcribe a circle this is what we get a point within a circle this is just simply just a circle drawn using a compasses so that makes sense but the symbol has another significant
Meaning it is the old longstanding K symbol both astronomically and alchemically associated with the Sun this is the symbol for the sun in other words period the Sun in the sky so when we look at that symbol and we see the sun in the sky we see that it
Is bounded by two parallel lines the solar implication becomes really obvious when you when and only when you replace those lines or associate them with a saint whose feast day is just three days after the summer solstice and the other Saint whose feast day is just six days after the summer
Solstice or three days after Christmas Eve okay the inclusion of these two Saints representing parallel lines that the circle just touches reemphasizes that this is a solar symbol this is a symbol that specifically references the Sun but you know what let’s let’s turn it on its side so that we get a better
Idea if you place the sun within two parallel lines but those two parallel lines run horizontally instead of vertically what you have here Brothers is the Tropic of of cancer and the Tropic Tropic of Capricorn the sun is constantly going on its path between those two lines those two boundary lines
To the north and south of the Equator by 23 and a half degrees in each Direction make up what we call the plane of the ecliptic that’s a phrase you have heard before in this room when we talk about why the north is a place of Darkness the north is a place of
Darkness in Masonic symbolism because King Solomon’s Temple sets north of that uppermost line and as a result the sun is always to the south of vertical okay we say the sun rises in the East we’re north of the Tropic of Cancer here as well the sun is
Never taking a path from du East to Du West straight overhead ever it can’t it’s always making that circuit by way of the South or I should say by way of the South okay and as a result any structure that’s built is going to cast a shadow in that direction hence why the
North is a place of Darkness to us the opposite is true if you are south of the Tropic of Capricorn if you’re within those two Tropics in that 45 47 degree band uh centered around the Equator the Sun is going to go back and forth as it
Depending on what time of year it is sometimes it’s going to be North sometimes it’s going to be South going to be directly overhead depending on where you are within that so this represents the sun being bounded by um these two Tropics it also emphasizes the nature of the saint of these Saints
Because St John the Baptist is associated with water okay chemically alchemically speaking the the symbol for water is a downward pointing triangle St John the Baptist is a descending sign and as a result his feast day is on or about the solar Solstice the summer solstice at which
Point the sun is at its highest point right and from it’s the longest day of the year beginning immediately after the summer solstice the days get shorter the power of the sun is descending and waning and becoming less powerful over the course of the next six months this is ill really nicely
Illustrated when we look at the symbol on its side okay until we get to December 21st just before the feast day of St John the Evangelist at which point we’re at the shortest point of the day this is the Sun at its weakest moment this says the Sun at at its lowest level
Of power and potency but it has nowhere there to go but up it goes back up the circle okay it is ascend in out of St John the Evangelist who is associated with fire the emblem of which is the upward pointing triangle it is an ascending sign so this is a circular
Path of descension and Ascension if we we don’t go just in a circle around the year even though our months say the same we’re constantly moving forward on the level of time right and that uh this illustrates what I was talking about before with the tropics and the direction of the Sun
Overhead I think I’d explain that without the without that um but we actually have instead of a circle since we’re moving forward in time is a sine wave half a circle going down half a circle coming up half a circle going down half a circle coming up
Okay this Brethren I put to you is also directly connected with the tokens of masonry and I’d be happy to address address that with you separately outside of a live stream but uh I would point to you if you’re interested in this aspect of it uh there’s a a couple of really
Good Papers written by Brother Tom dber that are published in traveling East that talk about the Holy Saints John there’s another one where he talks about the sign of masonry s i NE as opposed to s i g n uh and I hope I’m displaying to you the
Idea that this sine wave is just half a circle half a circle half a circle half a circle in alternating ascending and descending modes we’re all very comfortable with the idea of threes within the symbols of masonry we’ve got three lesser lights sitting right here in front of me right now
We’ve got three stationed officers Etc at nauseum but there’s also a lot of twos in masonry there’s a lot of dualities the most obvious of which is the two pillars over here to my right a lot of our symbolism centers around these two pillars I pose to you brothers that
Anytime you see two in Freemasonry it’s really three because the two of these pillars for example becomes three at the moment that we are pass from the degree of fellowcraft and we stand between these two pillars on our way to receive our wages right at that moment that is the moment that you
Were passed to a fellowcraft and that is at that moment there are not three pillars or two pillars there are three pillars we’re told that the point Point within the circle represents the individual Mason if that individual Mason is the point in the center then there’s not two
Figures in this symbol there’s three there is you the point within the circle bounded on either side by the other two pillars of St John the Baptist in descent the watery sign and St John the Evangelist in Ascent the fire sign and to bring that connection
Back to these pillars let me repeat what these pillars represent we know that these represent the pillars on the front of king of Solomon’s Temple but we also know scripturally and macki re reemphasizes this very well when he tells us that these pillars referenced the pillars of cloud and fire that went
Before the Israelites Into the Wilderness to guide them through the Wilderness a pillar of cloud by day a pillar of Fire by night what is cloud but water and what is fire but that ascending upward pointing triangle so these I I suggest brothers are just another example another reference to
These two pillars right here with you standing in the mid middle as the third pillar so whether you want to look at those as the pillars of jacin and Boaz as the pillars of severity and mercy as the pillars of wisdom and strength with you the individual Mason
Standing in the center as the pillar of beauty and that’s what I think the significance of the Saints John are it’s a solar reference it’s a connection back to this idea of the two upright pillars with you standing in the middle representing the middle pillar the harmony between the two
Extremes but I want to come back to that first question why we feast and I think brother the real reason for why we Feast we can we can get into the history of it we can get into the symbolism of it but at core we Feast for a very real very practical
Reason what we do in this room is sacred this is a Sacred Space what we do in here should be done with solemnity it it it’s not somber it’s not depressing but it’s solemn I’ve often heard people say the events depicted in our lessons in our rituals it’s a
Tragedy not a comedy and that’s true and I think that’s a concise way to put it but what we do here binds us together in Brotherhood by S sacred and solemn ceremonies but men need more than sacred and solemn ceremonies to bind themselves together they need that convivial
Atmosphere where they really form these bonds of friendship and brotherly love and that’s the purpose of the feast is to keep that levity I’ve often seen guys and some of you may have seen this some of you may have participated in this who like to get real hazy at
Certain points of our ritual in here because it’s fun they try to turn it into a comedy because probably because it’s the way it was done to them when they went through and that’s the way they and I know I’m guilty of it look I got my degrees in
Kentucky I don’t need to say anything more to any of you who have seen Kentucky degrees to you you know what I went through and there is a very real urge in us that we have to fight that says that’s the way it was
Done to me I need to do it to the next guy down the pike and the next guy down the pike because that’s the way it’s done Brothers I’m trying to tell you what we do in here is sacred and solemn the levity that Primal bonding with each
Other is done in that room after we’re done in here and to do they’re they’re just like these two pillars Brothers they’re just exactly like these two pillars one without the other is no good you have to have both of them and you have to have yourself in the center
Drawing from both the solemnity that goes on in here and the levity that goes on out there all of which within the bounds of propriety as described by the compasses so that we don’t go too far and make this really sad and depressing or make that intemperate and
Excessive we are to be that middle pillar balancing out and I’m going to wrap this up with a quote from John bisak John’s a dear friend of mine past master of my Lodge in Lexington and he says in that video that I told you about that we filmed last year he said this
The Masonic Feast the act of breaking bread together plays an important part in creating and cementing the Fraternal Ties That facilitate our our individual Transformations into better men it is a custom whose observance among Masons is as old as masonry itself this is a custom Brethren that we
Have lost we all eat at our lodges but so few of us ra raise your hand if you’ve ever been to a traditional Masonic festive board don’t don’t be shy there’s nothing I I I see maybe four brothers in the room who who have out of a group of 25 or
30 I I put it to you the challenge before us is the same as the challenge before our brethren in 1717 to reestablish this most important pillar of our Masonic experience and I hope that you will have such a positive experience tonight that you’ll want to keep doing it and keep
Doing it and keep doing it because it’s not only worthy I argue it’s necessary
source
