At the end of the 2022 Masonic Year, during the next Annual Communication, we will bring Exemplification back to the floor of the Grand Lodge of Missouri for the first time since 1949.ДЄ Revision of the Ceremonies Book as a Bicentennial Edition is due out on April 21, 2022. Masons learning and understanding the Closing Charge might be the best path to understanding and being changed by the ritual.Д®xemplification of Ritual will occur at the area meetings with discussion of the how and why of what we are doing. Masons acting as Masons could be the simplest way to state the concept of understanding and being changed by the ritual. However, it only connects us if we invest the same time and skill we use to learn and perform the Ritual to actually understanding and being changed by the ritual. It connects us in words, deeds, and thoughts. It is our Ritual that connects the past, the present, and the future. Our first Area Meeting is scheduled for November 13 th at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Kansas City.ДЎ) Current Topics and Q&A with the Grand Master вЂ“ access to the Grand Master in group settings and private meetings.Дў) Masonic Home Presentations вЂ“ why donations are more critical than ever in supporting the Masonic Home of Missouri the very institution that allows us to fulfill our obligations as Freemasons in assisting worthy Brethren, their widows, and orphans.ДЈ) Grand Secretary Meetings вЂ“ to provide up-to-date information about our website and portal.Д¤) Wardens and Masters Training вЂ“ a decades-long project coming to fruition to train our future leaders.ДҐ) Mentorship вЂ“ what it means to be a mentor, why it failed in the past, why it is failing now, and how we can make it work in the future.Д¦) Exemplification of the Ritual вЂ“ a topic that deserves a section for itself. Let me repeat something in that last sentence, it is our desire to coordinate the activities of the Grand Lodge with appendant bodies and local lodge activities.

We are going to have four to six area meetings, but those meetings will depend on our ability to coordinate with appendant bodies or lodge activities, such as Bicentennial events. Francois Lodge generated a tough response from the Grand Lecturer over the deplorable state of the Ritual throughout our jurisdiction.)ДЇocus on Relevance вЂ“ Honor the Past, Serve the Present, and Build the Future. Our focus on relevance addresses three key issues found throughout the last two hundred years of subordinate lodge minutes and Grand Lodge proceedings:Дў) Not enough people attend the meetings.ДЈ) No one knows the Ritual. Look, then, at the membership that were suspended for non-payment of dues to see that the problem of relevance is within our own ranks. Never before has the public been as keenly aware of the history and relevance of Freemasonry as in these current times. It is the Ritual that has made Freemasonry relevant through all the ages of man. This Masonic year is designed to bring relevance back to the membership of the lodges and challenge the membership to reflect the Masonic Light they received through our Ritual. Relevance is the key to bringing our Brethren back to our lodges, and relevance is the key to our future. If distractions are the cause of our present condition of membership participation and retention, then we should never have been created in the past. They raised their own food, built their own homes, and created most of the necessities in their lives. The Brethren of yesterday worked to establish our Fraternity at a time of unreliable transportation, poor roads that could at best be called trails, dangerous social and economic conditions, and scant medical facilities. It is our time to give of ourselves to benefit the Brethren of the future that we will never know.ДЄs a Fraternity, we have oft heard the excuse that people in modern times are distracted from joining our lodges or returning to our lodges. We now stand at the brow of a hill that overlooks two-hundred years of Missouri history. They unfailingly gave of themselves to benefit the Brethren of the future that they would never know.

These men represent the thousands of Freemasons who toiled to build the framework that is in place for us today. Men such as Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Hamilton Gamble, Thomas Riddick, Edward Bates, Thomas Hart Benton, and Alexander McNair. Our present and our future are part of the enduring legacy of the men who created the Grand Lodge of Missouri, who then went on to create the State of Missouri. The pride and relevance of who we are as Freemasons is not relegated to the past it defines our present and our future. Honor the Past, Serve the Present, and Build the Future

Masonic widows and orphans home