Templar Edification

In the early centuries of the Church, Christianity tended to be rather selective regarding whom we would or would not Baptize. It wasn’t a matter of proving one’s worth; the grace of Christ is freely given to sinners, superabundantly, profligately. But people had to know what they were getting into. Jesus promises His followers a cross, after all, and for nearly 300 years Christians had been persecuted by the Roman Empire. The baptismal symbolism of death and resurrection—joined to Christ’s own death, already died for us, that we need never fear death again, and to Christ’s own eternal life already begun—would have been far more than mere sentiment in those days. Christians courted death simply by professing our faith in Christ. Indeed, many were killed while awaiting their Baptism, thus held to have been “baptized in their blood.” In ancient Rome, catechumens could expect a three-year period of preparation, prayer, and formal instruction for at least an hour a week. Jerusalem sped thi...

As 2 February marks the Candlemas, so 3 February brings us to the commemoration of St Blaise, a figure of some import in the Middle Ages who has fallen into relative obscurity today. Indeed, I wouldn’t bring him up in these pages save for the fact that some parishes (such as ours) continue a wonderfully quirky tradition in his honor: the annual blessing of the throats. Blaise was famous, among other things, for saving someone from choking on a fishbone. It became de rigueur to take a pair of tapers blessed at Candlemas the night before, to cross them under a person’s throat, and to pray that they would be delivered “from every ailment of the throat and from every other disease.” I confess that I continue this tradition in part to “keep Church weird,” an operative dictum of mine. Yet even I don’t light the tapers, as had been the elder custom, lest I touch off someone’s hairspray. This is but one example of blessings held throughout the Church year—bread blessing at Lammas, beer blessin...

40 days after the birth of Jesus Christ, the Church celebrates an oft-overlooked holiday that goes by many names. For Protestants, it is the Presentation of Our Lord. Catholics call it the Purification of the Blessed Virgin. For the Orthodox, it is simply Hypapante, “the Meeting.” Yet I confess my own preference for the Anglican name: Candlemas. We find the story of Candlemas in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel, concluding that early section of canticles we sometimes call Luke: The Musical. 40 days after childbirth complete Mary’s period of ritual cleansing according to the Law of Moses. She may now travel to the Temple in Jerusalem in order to redeem Jesus as her firstborn Son. This harkens back to the tale of the Exodus, when God claimed the firstborn of Israel as His own, be they man or beast—“the males that first open the womb.” The number 40 always carries symbolic importance in the Scriptures; ancient peoples knew that it takes roughly 40 weeks for a pregnant woman to come to ...

References to the ‘Lion of Judah’ notwithstanding, as this is geared toward Christian specific bodies including Templary, many references remain quite important to all given the fact ‘Jesus’ was not named specifically in the time of Hiram Abif or the timeline of this story, beginning long before Jesus was born. At the time when premonitions of ‘a’ Savior were made by Founding Fathers of the Craft, the Lord’s Temple had yet to be completed. Please enjoy. Thank you. SK Eric Erfourth An excerpt from: Freemasonry and Catholicism By: Max Heindel - 1919 {the entirety of the book may be found in the public domain at  https://www.google.com/books/edition/Freemasonry_and_Catholicism/d0BIAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1  } Part IV. CASTING THE MOLTEN SEA “As the spiritual gifts of the Sons of Seth flowered in Solomon, the wisest of men, and enabled him to conceive and design a marvelous temple, according to the plan of his creator, Jehovah, so Hiram, the clever craftsman, embodied within himse...

     So what is a magus exactly? Strictly speaking, “magi” refers to the Zoroastrian priests of ancient Persia; renowned astrologers for whom sacred fires were the preëminent symbols of the presence of God. The thought of their founding prophet, Zoroaster, falls somewhere between dualism and monotheism, and the faith that he left behind both influenced and was influenced by biblical Judaism.      Persians generally come off pretty well in the Hebrew Bible. When the Chaldeans of the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered Judah and scattered the Jewish people into Exile, most settled in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) right next to Persia (modern day Iran). Zoroastrian ideas of angels, demons, and a coming Final Judgment found fertile ground in Judaism, while Jewish monotheism firmed up Zoroastrian concepts of God.      When Cyrus the Great soon thereafter arose as Emperor of the Persians and Medes, Jewish prophets hailed him as an anointed liberator se...

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unt...

     Every culture that knows winter knows a winter feast. And the themes of such feasts are dictated by the season: light in the midst of darkness, warmth in the midst of cold, generosity in the midst of scarcity, joy in the midst of depression, and life in the face of death. Winter festivals are acts of defiance, of subversive jubilation. That’s why we love them so. A December fire in the hearth sparks far more wonder than any summer grill.      The earliest Christians concerned themselves with but two holidays: Sunday, the day of Resurrection; and Pascha, the Passover of Our Lord, which served as Sunday for the entire year. The liturgical calendar which we know and love today, with all of its festivals and feasts, arose over time and grew out of these original two. The most glaring ancient omission from our postmodern perspective would appear to be Christmas.      Yet Christmas is not quite the latecomer some would have us believe. Christi...