Why Memorize Ritual
I'm sure there are lots of good reasons, I'll give you one
The other day, I’m minding my own business, taking a shower, when a thought sparked in my head. A meaning of a snippet of Masonic ritual that I’d memorized years and years ago.
Had I not memorized that passage so long ago, my unconscious mind wouldn’t have been considering it from time to time in the years since. It’s meaning, which makes perfect sense to me and my life would have never been able to reach my conscious thoughts. Now I have a bit more knowledge and instruction that I never had before.
The fact of the matter is that some Masons are really, really good at memorizing our ritual, and are both willing and able to devote the time it takes to get it done. Other Masons are not. Some Masons, for whatever reason, struggle with memory work.
Still others of us, myself for example, are kind of in the middle. When I was a new Mason, I was good at memory work. I think that I was really good at Memory work. But then I had to run my Lodge, and I’ve never had a year since when I’ve not been either a Grand Lodge Officer, or a primary Lodge Officer. Honestly, I could memorize more, but I don’t have time to memorize more at this particular point in my own Masonic journey. So my own ritual proficiency has fallen, quite a lot, since I was a younger Mason.
We are all different, based on our own unique abilities and circumstances. And that is OK. We don’t all need to be superb ritualists. Indeed, there are Grand Lodges in this big world of ours that don’t require any memory work, they read the ritual.
But, I do think that we should all try. We should try within our own capacities. If we try to memorize the work, even if we don’t get it and need to read it, we will deliver it much better than if we are reading it as if for the very first time.
Beyond that, the reason that I’d like to share with you today, is that by trying to memorize the work, we are slowly but surely getting it into our head, where our subconscious mind will play around with it. We will derive meaning from the words, sometimes without even realizing it. That is important, and that is one of the ways Freemasonry slowly improves the men who are involved with it.
Back when the ritual was taught mouth to ear, there was no one reading out of a cipher or book. With very few exceptions, everyone can memorize the ritual. If you know your street address, or the pledge of allegiance, you can store and retain information. It can take longer and require more work, but it can be done. It takes me a lot of practice to memorize the work, but I make the time to do so.
The slow erosion of standards within our fraternity is alarming. Brother’s claiming they can’t do the work, yet are pushed through the line anyway, just drives me nuts. Seeing open standard work on any brothers lectern is a travesty. It just means to me that they don’t have the integrity or devotion to our craft to spend a few minutes each day working through the ritual.
I am also too involved as a pillared officer to expend the extra time learning lectures, it’s more than enough work for me to keep up with what I already know. Perhaps in a few years when I’m no longer needed to fill a chair I can sit down and start learning something more. A brother I know told me it took him a year to learn the 2nd degree lecture. And I think the 2nd is the easiest of the three. Kudos to anyone that expend the time going that extra mile.
In the Grand Lodge of Alabama, knowledge of the ritual is an unofficial prerequisite for being elected into the Grand Line. With one exception, every Grand Master since, at least, 1950, has been expected to be a superb ritualist.
As I’ve travelled across the state presenting lectures, I plead with my brethren to not allow the ritual to be the sole determinant in establishing one’s value to the Craft.