Are you A Master Mason

Websters Dictionary defines Master as a

person with the ability or power to use, control, or dispose of something: a worker qualified to teach apprentices and to carry on a trade independently. a. a person with exceptional skill at a certain thing a highly regarded teacher or leader whose religion or philosophy is accepted by followers. With that being said a Master Mason is a person with exceptional skills, a highly regarded teacher or leader whose religion or philosophy is accepted by followers. Are you a Master mason? You may quickly answer in the affirmative but are you really. Yes the ritual if followed will tell you so, however are you a Master Mason. Webster defines Ritual as an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.prescribed, established, or ceremonial acts or features collectively, as in religious services. a prescribed code of behavior regulating social conduct.

So again are you a Master Mason? As a master you are skilled in your trade, you have complete knowledge of your profession and your Working Tools.

If I was to ask what are the compasses and its symbolism in freemasonry, You answer if given would only be half correct ( it keeps me in bound with all man kind, it circumscribes my actions.) But lets first look at what you should have learned in your travels As a master Mason you have now reached the third or crowning step, in the development of your character. As a Mason it remains for you to give the finishing touches to that wonderful temple, not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens. As an entered Apprentice you represented primevil man when his eyes were first opened to the realization that the Square Dominated the Compasses: that up to now your life had been devoted to fulfilling the desires of the flesh and mind, with no higher aspirations than the gratification of the natural appetites and passions. With the working tools of an Apprentice, the common gavel, and rule you laid the foundation of your temple, but as yet your eyes were not fully opened: you could see only through a glass darkly

As a Fellow Craft your eyes were still further opened, You received more light: you discovered that in order to erect on the foundation you had laid an enduring superstructure. The Square and Compasses must be interlaced: also, that the two principal columns in the superstructure of your temple should be Intellectuality, and Spirituality, properly nailed and braced one to the other. You learned that in your work you needed more working tools that the common gavel and Rule, and you found waiting still more important working tools to be used in conjunction with the Common Gavel and Rule: the additional tools being the Plumb and Level and Square.

God has provided, within easy reach of every earnest worker, the proper tools for his enterprise, whenever he shall become duly and truly prepared, worthy and well qualified.

As a Fellow Craft, you learned that however firm the foundation of your temple might be, the superstructure, erected thereon, could Not be expected to endure, unless it was constructed, in every way Level, Square, and Plumb. As a Fellow Craft you studied the great laws that control the physical and the spiritual universes. You learned that the same laws of harmony govern and control in each, You discovered that they are not separate and distinct but the go hand in hand on the level of Gods Wisdom and Justice, and now the accumulated fund of Knowledge and experience you arrive at the portals of the Masters Degree, bring your working tools with you. You discover that in order to bring about the completion of your temple and to beautify, enrich and embellish it, as to meet the approval of Divine architect, you still need more working tools. The first of these additional tools that is brought to your attention is the Compasses, again you will learn as a Master the Compasses must dominate the Square, in every sense of the word. You learn that the compasses are made use of in drafting orbits of the Heavenly Bodies, so you must make use of them in designing the dome of your temple Eternal. As an Apprentice and Fellow Craft you were engaged in drawing straight lines and angles. In the Master Masons degree you must direct our thoughts to the Great circle of Gods Divine Providence. As our Sun, the center of the universe with innumerable planets stars and satellites is sweeping a great circle around some far-distant sun or superior body, enclosing countless orbits or circles, each independent and yet not independent, each following is own prescribed orbit.

We as Masters cannot define our duties by mathematical lines, ruled by the Square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses: that he circle of humanity is

the limit. And we are but the point, in the center: the drop in the Atlantic, bound by the mysterious laws of attractions, which we term our sympathy to every other atom in the mass, that the physical and moral welfare of others cannot be indifferent to us: that we have a direct and immediate interest in the public morality and popular intelligence in the well being of the people, their pauperism, and destitution, and consequent degradation; their brutalization and demoralization are ALL diseases

Imagine you and a friend are standing on opposite sides of a lake each of you skips a rock in to the lake each stone will cause ripples or circles however each stones circles or ripples Do not disturb each other, but the both continue on their appointed ways.

Every uttered word, that ever disturbed the atmosphere, has sent forth an ever widening circle of influence, the boundary of which is only limited but by eternity. Every thought conceived in the mind of man send forth and ever increasing circle of influence, the force of which is only limited by the importance and value of thought. Every thought however trifling and unworthy, however grand and ennobling, sends out its own circle of influence, as the sun has its circle light, and so does the firefly. The key to every mans nature is his thought His words mean something or nothing, but had we always an x-ray picture thoughts we would never be at loss to understand his character. Are you a Master Mason, do your thoughts, or actions even inactions disrupt the circle of influence are you bound by the compasses. There is not nor can there be inertia I the nature or in man, either physically or spirituality. We either retrograde or go forward, we do not stand still. The thought of tomorrow should be grander and more ennobling than that of today. There should be on part of every man a continual effort to raise himself above himself, to reach a plane tomorrow in advance of that of yesterday, until there shall come a time when he can thankfully say Today, I am God in nature whereas yesterday, I was but as a weed by the wayside .

Excerpts from Symbolism of Freemasonry Master Mason Degree.