Good to know - Assiduity and Ritual

Assiduité : L’assiduité est le premier devoir d’un Franc-Maçon. Cette phrase d’ailleurs figure souvent sur les convocations. Aussi toute absence doit elle être justifiée par des motifs valables.
Attendance: Attendance is the first duty of a Freemason. This phrase also appears frequently on the summons. Therefore, any absence must be justified by valid reasons.

Rituel : Ensemble de dispositions spécifiques à chaque degré comprenant le plus souvent la façon d'ouvrir et de fermer les travaux, les noms, la description des décors, les mots de passe et mots sacrés, les attouchements et les pas.
Ritual: A set of provisions specific to each level comprising mostly how to open and close the works, names, descriptions of settings, passwords and secret words, and esoteric marchs.

Ritual and literalism

One of the questions normally raised for those who enter our Craft is the veracity of the ritual in retelling histories taken from the Bible, basically the Ancient Testament. One Apprentice once alert me that tried to find the figure of Abiff in the book and would not find it. There is something true in this. The rituals as we use in our meetings were designed and conceived one century ago and document the vision and the reading of the Men who took the job to adapt old teachings for masonic instruction. So most of what is repeated in the rituals of the Second and Third Degree is fiction composed only for moral and ethic instruction; there are some analogies with characters from the Bible but the rituals aren't reproductions of the Holy Bible.
We Master Masons believe that by repeating these tales and analogies we pass to the youngsters the teachings of moral that we were instructed along our masonic career. That is the reason why there are so many visions on the Solomon Temple or the hidden meaning of the symbols of geometry we use as tools of apprenticeship. Masonic historians and scholars added precious descriptions to what we know and comprehend about the Ancient times were the Christian orders of soldiers and masons look to embedded in their work and mission the contemplation of the marvelous work of God.
By delimitating the logic of these tales and analogies we keep the level of instruction to what is required, and not sacralizing what is not intended to be so.
The rituals are interpretations and they are - mainly in AASR - open to adjustments and improvements that make the wording more reliable and understood for the men of our time. By doing so Masonic authorities contribute to the enrichment of the doctrine and ritualism.

Ritual and parroting

How important is to perform the ritual the proper and convenient way? At the first glance it seems more important the substance then the form; the experience than its expression. Some of the world most prestigious masonic orders run freemasonry has they have done it for ages, by parroting some written dialogues in a language that no one uses no more and that some illuminati regard as fix and impracticable of change. When I look to the young Brethren repeating the ritual - time and time it again, without understanding the meaning below the words - under the amused eyes of the more experienced (los maestros), I found myself thinking to my buttons, that senior people in our Craft need to understand that this way of doing it, is not, definitively, the way to reinvigorate freemasony, to open itelf to a new generation that has doubts and questions (like our had) and look to the challenges of the Internet, the IPOD, the Mac, or the Youtube as something that requires a new attitude. Of course there are some chaps that opening Masonic temples to the public and even wear aprons without "being protected from the profane" is to best way to "open" Freemasonry to the outside wortld. But why not beginning to explaining what we are, what are the values that bind us together, beyond races, latitudes, languages and traditions. 

The best change to get, rapidly, outdated is to stand in these odd ways that look at our teachings as something that cannot be changed, ameliorated to adjusted to new times and new Men. Like those parrots in the class of secondary school. 

Silence. What does this sign means?

Silence is something very precious
to freemasons. We learn it in the First Degree. And we retake it in another degree that AASR' masons understand. We listen, see and feel before making any judgement about the proficency of our Brethren. Only stupid people talk about things they don't know; or comprehend. This is the first rule of anyone intending to approach freemasonry and pretending to knock at the door. The world is full of this presumption people, we try to select the humble and those who are demanding about themselves. Progress is slow but we open the door to things you never guess about. If you are a free man of good report and want to experiment something different and demanding knock at our door. As the Men on the right and the left have done. They are Freemasons and proud. The contact in the e-mail on the right.