The Phoenix York Rite Mason Trestleboard

 

 

 

 

February 2004

 

 

 

 

               Phoenix Commandery No. 3

 

INSIDE THIS ISSUE    

 

                Eminent Commanders Message

I want to thank the Sir Knights that attended the Christmas               Observance Ceremonies held at the Phoenix Masonic Temple on December 15th.  I was exceptionally pleased with the                         attendance of more than 80 people.  Phoenix Commandery No.3, Scottsdale Commandery No.11, Crusade Commandery No. 12, and St Andrew Commandery UD joined together to make this an Outstanding Christmas Observance.                                       

Companions and Sir Knights please review with you Blue Lodge secretary the names of the brothers that were raised during the past few years and contact them about becoming a York Rite Mason.  Our Spring Festival will be held March 6th and March 20th, 2004.  With a little effort on your part we can have one of the largest classes in many years.  We need to strengthen our York Rite Bodies.  Please contact our Recorder John Ruth and request some Petitions now, so they can be read no later than the March 6th Festival.                        

The next Phoenix Commandery opening will be on March 8th.                 I will promise to keep the stated meeting as short as possible. Please try to attend this meeting for the great fellowship, education and learn with us.                                                      

Winter uniforms will be the dress for the meeting if you are in possession of one.  The Phoenix Masonic Temple Board of Directors are selling laser engraved Memorial Masonic Bricks to continue the refurbishment and maintenance of our Historical Masonic Temple. If you are interested in this fundraiser, please contact  me or our York Rite recorder,  John Ruth for more information and an order form.  All of the York Rite emblems are available to be engraved on your brick. An engraved brick can be purchased for as low as $50.                          

The ladies of the Beauceant continue to serve a great meal each month.  Dinner is served at 6:30 PM and the meeting convenes at 7:30 PM.                                                                           

Hope to see you on March 8th.

Paul Dore Sr. E.C.

Eminent Commander

Calendar of Events

High priest article

Illustrious Master article

Have you attended Your blue lodge lately?

Does your lodge know that you are a York Rite Mason; do they know what York Rite Masonry is about?

We have speakers that would be glad to go to your lodge and talk about York Rite Masonry.

Have you mad a donation to our Temple Preservation

Trust, a fully tax-deductible donations are being accepted by our Secretary-Recorder.

 

 

Reach out and help someone.  We can all make a better World together

 

 

IMPORTANT YORK RITE DATES

Please mark you calendar:

February 9th Phoenix Council No.4 opening

March 8th Phoenix Commandery No.3 opening

March 6th  Chapter & Council Festival

March 13th Mid-winter conference – Casa Grande

March 20th Commandery Festival

April 12th Arizona Chapter No.1 opening

May 8th Regius College Meeting – Phoenix

May 10th Phoenix council No.4 opening & ELECTIONS

May 15th  Four Corners Festival – Moab Utah

August 18 – 21st Grand York Rite Sessions – Tucson, Arizona

 

 

PHOENIX COMMANDERY NO.3

HISTORY

PRIOR TO 1912

 

Sir Freeman Rickerson, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Phoenix, a most divine and an enthusiastic Knight Templar, a Past Grand Prelate of the jurisdiction of Illinois, published a call for a meeting of Knights Templar of the city for the purpose of assembling Sir Knights to arrange for holding Easter service for which he proposed to prepare an address on Templar Masonry.

Nineteen Sir Knights answered the call and Easter services were arranged for and held on Sunday evening, March 29, 1891.  The number which responded suggested the idea of a new Commandery and the matter of Easter services having been arranged, the expediency of its organization was discussed and resulted in the adoption of a resolution offered by Sir Harry Budd Lighthizer that the Sir Knights present join in a petition to the Most Eminent Grand Master of the Grand Encampment, there being no Grand Commandery of Arizona at that time, for a dispensation to organize and hold a Commandery of Knights Templar in the City of Phoenix. The petition was prepared, signed by nineteen Sir Knights and directed to the Most Eminent Sir John Peter Shindel Gobin, of Pennsylvania, then Most Eminent Grand Master of the Grand Encampment.  Sir Harry Bud Lighthizer was named for Eminent Commander, Sir Ephraim J Bennitt for Generalissimo, and Sir Prosper Powell Parker for Captain General.

The first Conclave was held June 15, 1891.

A Charter was received in due time and just at this point a peculiar thing occurred to the Commandery; the Charter after being received, disappeared and to this day its loss has remained a mystery.  It became necessary to have a second charter issued, which was done, and the essential document was received and more carefully preserved.

On November 14, 1892, Phoenix Commandery No. 3 was regularly constituted under the Charter, which is signed by Most Eminent Grand Master Sir John Peter Shindel Gobin of the Grand Encampment.

The Grand Commandery Knights Templar of Arizona was constituted in 1893, and in the first eighteen years of its existence Phoenix Commandery No.l3 furnished seven Right Eminent Grand Commanders to the jurisdiction as follows: R.E. Sir Prosper Parker, 1898; R.E. Sir Charles D Beldon, 1901; R.E. Sir Thomas Armstrong, jr. 1903; R.E. Sir John J Sweeney, 1906; R. E. Sir Nathan A Morford, 1910; R.E. Sir George H.N. Luhrs, 1911.

 

 

Arizona Chapter #1 Royal Arch Masons

 

 

From the High Priest

 

We are taught that ours is a moral science, taught by degrees only.  Royal Arch Masonry is yet another step in our lives as Masons, one taught by degrees.  As we reflect back on our Masonic backgrounds we see that this is very much the case.  Each of the degrees in Masonry is compounded upon the previous degrees we have experienced, and as is the case of life, so progresses our Masonic Life.

Remember back to your first three degrees in Masonry, to the time that you were raised as a Master Mason.  Do you see now that each degree is built upon the previous, thereby patching together our history and traditions as a fraternity?  Reflect upon your several degrees towards becoming a Royal Arch Mason.  Can you see now, how each degree built upon the previous, thereby telling the story that binds us as one?

 

Have you wondered why ritual is so important in our fraternity?  It is most important to us to propound those principals that are the very foundation of Masonry.  We accomplish this, in a great part, by perpetuation of ritual.  By dedicating ourselves to abide by ritual, we thereby pass on the very principals upon which this fraternity were founded.

 

Remember this when you are next in a Chapter meeting, or any other Masonic meeting for that matter.  Why are we here?  What can each of us do to promote this fraternity? I challenge you first to call a brother and ask how he is doing; check on his welfare (isn’t this one of the most important tenants of Freemasonry…..brotherly love?.)  Ask him if there is anything that you can do for him (relief).  Isn’t it most important that we look after the welfare of our brothers? And finally, be honest.  Tell your brother what is foremost on your mind.  Be tactful, but most importantly be honest.  Learn to critique, not to criticize.  Critique is positive, while criticism undermines by a mean purpose.  Our responsibility is to guide and to correct our “less informed brethren”, not to put them down.  As our Mothers used to tell us: “if you can’t say something good about another, then say nothing.”  I’ve heard too many ”brothers” badmouth those they call their brothers.  This is not what Masonry is about.

I’ll see you again soon in the Temple as a Mason.  God Bless you all!

Bill Garrard

HP, Arizona Chapter No.1

 

PHOENIX COUNCIL NO.4

 

 

Companions, In the degree of Royal Master, we find this brief and simple ceremony to be one of the most beautiful presentations in the York Rite.  Throughout all the symbolism of Masonry the search for the WORD has been considered but as a symbolic expression for the search for TRUTH.   The attainment of this truth has always been acknowledged to be the great object and design of all Masonic Labor.  Divine truth-the knowledge of god, concealed in the Kabalistic doctrine under the mystical expression of the True Word, is the reward proposed to every Mason who has faithfully wrought his task.  It is in short “The Master’s Wages.”  All of this is beautifully symbolized in the degree of Royal Master.  The reward has been promised, and the time had now come, as Adoniram thought, when the promise was to be redeemed, and the word-Divine truth was to be imparted.  Hence, in the person of Adoniram or the Royal Master, we see symbolized the speculative Mason who, having labored to complete his spiritual temple, comes to the Divine Master that he may receive his reward and that his labor may be consummated by the acquisition of truth.  Both the temple that he had been building was the temple of his life.  We have been taught that the first temple must be destroyed by death that the second temple of the future life may be built on it foundations.

Phil N Workman

Illustrious Master