| Worshipful Master's Report - 2011 |
| Written by Justin Duffy | |||
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Worshipful Master's Report Since the time of our last annual meeting on December 3, 2010 Wyllys Saint John's Lodge Number 4 has held nineteen Stated Communications. We held four special communications, with a planned fifth having been canceled. We initiated 4 Brothers into the Craft as Entered Apprentices, Passed 7 Brothers to the Degree of Fellow Craft, and Raised 10 Brothers to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason. One Brother chose to affiliate with our Lodge and we grant him a Brother's welcome. At the same time we are bereaved to have had to say goodbye to 12 Brothers who have passed on to the Celestial Lodge Above. We are pleased to announce that no Members have chosen to demit nor have any members chosen to neglect their Masonic duties by being dropped from our rolls for non payment of dues. On December 3rd of 2010 our total number of members was 222. As of today our total number of members stands at 214 members. Those are the numbers, but numbers alone can not begin to tell the story of Wyllys -Saint John's Lodge Number 4 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in the year 2011. 2011 has been a very good year for our Lodge. It has been a year of challenges, a year of action, a year of change, and more than anything else a year that reflects the tenets of Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. Picture, if you will, a meeting of the Twelve Brother who formed St. John's Lodge at Hartford in 1762. They met in a room above the Bunch of Grapes Tavern. They no doubt met on nights of the full moon as was the custom of North American Lodges at that time, the natural light being essential for nocturnal travel. They met by candle and lamp light. The Master, Worshipful Brother John Townley, would trace out his Trestleboard containing the work of the evening on the floor before his Station in the East using chalk. No Brother dare pass between the alter and the Master's chair in the East lest they undo the trestle board with their errant footsteps. Lodge paraphernalia was, quite necessarily, very simple and easily broken down and transported. They worked ritual which was passed down orally from Brother to Brother, the attentive ear receiving these vital lessons from the instructive tongue. Their meetings were large scale events by the standards of the day, with a grand banquet preceding the work of the evening. The lodge's largest expenditure would often be rum. In those days when a lodge became too large, say over 35 or 40 members, a new lodge would be chartered and St. John's at Hartford, rechristened St. John's Lodge No. 4 in 1792 after helping to form the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Connecticut, gave birth to many daughter lodges. One of those daughter lodges was Wyllys 99, which was organized in 1866 by ten Brothers of West Hartford and named after founding St. John's No. 4 member and revolutionary war hero Samuel Wyllys. Wyllys Lodge 99 started in the same way as had its predecessor, meeting first at Goodman's Tavern in what is now Bishops Corner and later at Hurlbut's Tavern in the same general area. A change came in Masonry, which began at the time of the Civil War, when our Fraternity enjoyed extensive growth after a long period of retraction in response to the rise of the Anti-Masonic Party following the William Morgan Affair of 1826. At this time Lodges began to grow beyond their original scope. They moved out of the back rooms of Taverns and would build their own Temple buildings, modest at first and increasingly elaborate as time progressed. Two examples of this are the grand temple building St. John's Lodge No.4 constructed in 1894, the edifice of which still survives in downtown Hartford, containing symbols that are easily identified by the savvy Brother of the Craft. The Second example we stand in today, the Masonic Temple at 11 South Main Street in West Hartford, constructed in 1928. The change climaxed in the years immediately following Wold War Two, when Wyllys Lodge No. 99 swelled to well over a thousand members, a number unthinkable in the time of Worshipful Brother John Townely and implausible at the time when Most Worshipful Brother William Storer founded Wyllys Lodge 99, a mere 70 years earlier. Such success was echoed throughout the State. The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge also expanded in both size and scope during this period in which it enjoyed extensive revenues from a seemingly ever expansive Brotherhood. As grand as this period in Masonic history was, it ran contrary to the spirit under which either Lodge was founded and was ultimately unsustainable. The counter cultural revolution of the late nineteen sixties proved a grievous wound to Masonry, with the children of Masons rejecting the principles and institutions of their Fathers. A long retraction not seen since the days following the Morgan Affair ensued, but instead of a singular event it was a death by a thousand cuts. This ultimately culminated in Lodge closures and mergers, the merger of Wyllys Lodge No. 99 and St. John's Lodge No.4 being a prime example. The dawn of the new millennium has witnesses a resurgence in the popularity of our craft, no doubt provoked by Freemasonry’s exposure in popular culture such as the books of Dan Brown, the several exposés on the History and Discover channels, and the National Treasure film franchise. The resurgence proves two things. The first is that, despite this resurgence, the model of 1950s Freemasonry is unsustainable in modern times. We no longer raise 50 to 100 brothers a year. Our lodge membership roll numbers in the low hundreds not the thousands. The low dues, based first on sheer numbers of members joining in the 1950s and early 60s and later upon a trust fund gained from the sale of St. John's Lodge No. 4's magnificent Temple building, can no longer sustain us. Believe it or not, this is actually not a bad thing. I say this because the second thing we must take into account is that those who come to knock on the door of Freemasonry today are very different from the post World War II era Candidates. They are interested in the history of the Fraternity and are looking for a Masonry more in line with what had been practiced by our ancient brethren, the Freemasonry of the age in which Saint John's 4 and Wyllys 99 were founded. They have read the books and seen the films and television programs about the craft and are looking for the elements portrayed therein. They are not looking for the social club that Masonry devolved into during the height of its popularity in the 1950s. They want the history and the mystery of the ancient, honorable and mystic Craft of Freemasonry. It would serve the Fraternity well to stop looking for ways to make the itself more appealing to the masses and instead concentrate on the things that make our Fraternity so appealing as it is, or was. It is time to reinvest ourselves of that which has been divested. This year we made a bold step towards providing that and we will continue to do so. We have embraced our ancient roots and will continue to elaborate on this good and great work. We do this while embracing fellowship and continuing our strong practice of charity. As we move forward we do so from a position of strength, a strength born out of brotherhood. I ask that each officer of this Lodge as they move forward consider the great Brothers of history and study their example. Remember those who gave freely of their time to build up our Craft and honor the memory of those ancient and not so ancient Brothers who sacrificed their lives for Freemasonry. Consider your own thoughts, words, and deeds. Craft yourself into the type of Mason who can humbly stand beside such honorable and venerated Brothers and be a beacon of light and hope to future generations of Masons. The future of our August Fraternity is as always in your keeping. Keep it well and wisely my Brothers. I would like to conclude with a quote from Worshipful Brother George L. Vannais, Past Master of St. John's Lodge No. 4 in 1905 who said, “My brothers, let me remind you that it is the Mission of all good things to mold men's souls into the image of God, so by our reverence for Him, by our love for our fellow men, by our benevolence to the needy, by our charity for all, let us strive to make ourselves fit living stones for that spiritual building, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” May the Grand Architect of the Universe protect and keep you and yours. Humbly Submitted,
Justin Andrew Damien Duffy
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