Letter of the month: April 2005

From: RoyalArchMason@aol.com
Message-ID: <cf.26bb1d44.2f9054b1@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:20:17 EDT
Subject: Maine One-Day Class
To: masonry-ask@mit.edu

Hi Gary.

I wanted you to know that Maine has not joined the trend of one-day classes.

This Saturday, Maine is having its version, called "OneDay, the Maine way". On Saturday, The 3rd degree will be held all around the State for candidates who have already had their first and second degrees. They will all receive their 3rd degree in the traditional manner as well.

The idea was to create a drive to line up candidates by setting one day in which they would all be raised. It gave focus and direction and created a bit of a contest but sacrificed nothing in the way of ritual and the candidates being initiated.

In my lodge in York, St. Aspinquids, 6 candidates will be raised, 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. In all, this lodge is raising 9 candidates in April. The have a very active lodge and very active outreach and community program.

I am very happy that Maine withstood pressure from some of its leadership. One of the reasons is that in Maine the Grand Lodge officers are elected by a broad base of Maine Masons, who were obviously not in favor of the more typical one-day class program. The man they elected as the current grand master, and who endorsed the current campaign, is Clair Tusch, who has great appreciation for the value of our initiatic process. Thank G-d.

I wanted to inform you of the program in case you were unaware of it.

Fraternally,
John Fennessey