[Grand Lodge]
[Calendar] [Search] [Resources] [History] [Links] [Sitemap]
M. W. Hazen
LECTURES
RITUAL INDEX
INDEX OF PAPERS
BIOGRAPHY
.
.
The circle of friendship
This ceremony was introduced into the British Columbia Board of Installed Masters ceremony by MW Bro. Laurence Healey, Grand Master for 1952-1953, without formal adoption by Grand Lodge. It continued to be used in many of our lodges unto 2019, when a ruling prohibiting its use was issued.
Let me once again direct your attention to the Great Lights of Freemasonry: the Volume of Sacred Light, the Square and Compasses.
The Volume of Sacred Law is that Great Light that leads us to all truth, directs our steps towards the path of happiness and teaches us the whole duty of man.
The Square reminds us to regulate our lives and actions by the principles of morality and virtue.
The Compasses teach us that in all stations of life, to so restrict our desires so that rising to eminence by merit, we shall live respected and die regretted.
This circle with all its individual segments is emblematic of fellowship, Masonic fellowship, but more especially and particularly the fellowship of Installed Masters.
This evening we are to receive another into our mystic circle in the person of our newly installed Master, W. Bro. ____________ .
Let us now close our ranks by taking one short pace foreward, standing shoulder to shoulder, arms crossed, hands warmly clasped, thus welding this circle into an unending chain of fraternal unity.
The experiences through which we have all passed should bind us together for ever and make this circle stronger and more enduring than bands of steel. If our labours in Freemasonry have taught us but one thing, accomplished but one purpose, and that being the making and cementing of true and lasting friendships, than our labours about the altar of Freemasonry have not been in vain.
May friendships thus made never be broken. May we all live in peace love and unity.
May our faith continue to grow stronger and purer, aiding and supporting us in all our trials and emergencies, and may fidelity be the mark of all our actions.
Thus by the principles of faith, friendship and fidelity we shall be able to sustain, worthily and with dignity, the honourable title of an Installed Master.
And now as this circle with all its individual segments is about to be dispersed, never again to be reformed in exactly the same manner, may the Great Architect of the Universe bless and preserve each and every one of us, and may we all meet again in the Grand Lodge Above.
As we close this Holy Book let us remember those Installed Masters who we knew and loved when they laboured here among us, whose book of life is closed and who have gone to their reward in the arms of the Father.
As we revere their memory, let us resolved that we too shall transmit those ancient truths pure and unimpaired, to those who come afterwards, as they have been transmitted to us.
So mote it be.

Derived from the Super Excellent Master ritual of the Order of the Royal Arch, MW Bro. Laurence Healey, Grand Master for 1952-1953, introduced the Circle of Friendship into the Board of Installed Masters ceremony, without authority. From a stencil duplicated copy in the Archive of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon. The use of variations was common until 2019 across the jurisdiction. The Board of Installed Masters ritual, available through the Grand Secretary's office, was taken from Franklin Thomas' Revised Working, London (1888).

ANTI-MASONRY | BIOGRAPHIES | ESSAYS & PAPERS | GRAND LODGE OF BC AND YUKON | HOME | LINKS | SITEMAP
[Anti-masonry]

© 1871-2023 Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A.M. Updated: 2019/11/16
freemasonry.bcy.ca/lectures/circle.html