Sciences of the Old Gothic Constitutions

 


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Cherubim

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In York Rite Masonry, we are introduced to the presence of Cherubim and their importance to our Masonic Ritual. The part of Masonic Ritual where the presence of Cherubim is most prominent is when we do the circumambulations in the Royal Master Degree where the Cherubim (if enough members are present) greet the candidate and the Conductor of the Council as they make their way around the Council. The first mention of Cherubim in York Rite Masonry is during the Super Excellent Master Degree during the dedication of the Temple after the Keystone is lowered into place. The Ark is placed into the completed Temple and upon the Ark are Cherubim indicating the presence of God. When we do the opening of the Royal Arch Degree, the Captain of the Host mentions the Masters of the Veils are guards of the Veils. He mentions that on the veils are representative of the four tribes of Israel, Judah, Ephraim, Ruben and Dan an on each banner is delineated a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle. This is the are...
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Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an awkward observance for most clergy, or at least those of a liturgical bent. This is because, quite simply, Thanksgiving is not a Church holiday; it is an affair of state. As such, we do not have a ready-made observance, no rubrics to follow. This leads to an improvised hodgepodge of Thanksgiving Day or Thanksgiving Eve services, some certainly better than others, yet all of them blurring the line betwixt the secular and the sacred. Thus we must take care. Render unto Caesar, and all that. One could approach the story of Thanksgiving from several different angles. School plays often point to the Year of Our Lord 1621, when the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, both Strangers and Saints, shared a three-day harvest festival with their Wampanoag allies. Historians often point to 1863, the height of the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a Federal holiday commemorating the founding unity of the American nation. But an honest account of its origins, methinks, lies somew...
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Two Knights on One Horse

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Two Knights on One Horse; A secret hidden in plain sight. By SK Ray Hayward REPGC, KCT. If you’ve read any books on the Knights Templar, you probably come across the image of two knights riding on the same horse. To the casual observer, it’s odd that two fully armored knights would ride the same horse, unless it was in an extreme case. According to legend,  Hugues de Payens  (the first Grand-Master of the Templars) and Godfrey were so poor that between the two of them they had only one horse, and this gave rise to the famous image on  the seal of the Templars , of two men riding a single horse.  In Templar history, we find that that image is the seal of the 6 th Grandmaster of the Knights Templar, Bertrand de Blanquefort. The grandmasters and officers all had seals to affix to documents in addition to their signature. The seals were tied with ribbon to the bottom of a document, probably vellum, and then a ball of hot wax was poured on the ribbon, and the seal would ...
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