March 12,2026 South Bend - We gather today to honor the Dead. What greater tribute can we, as living beings participating in this great adventure of life, offer to those who pass the final veil but to remember them. To celebrate not just their character, or their accomplishments, but to acknowledge and celebrate that fact that they, like us, were just weary pilgrims discovering the creation along side us. Much of humanity discovers the struggle of the ultimate question, that of the nature of death, only by the tragedy of death itself. They learn to understand only in the midst of grief. And perhaps for them the lessons that death teaches arrive to them only after the fog of grief and the pain of loss give way to the realization that life must continue. We should only look upon that unfortunate process with compassion. Treat the symptoms only with Love.
Freemasonry offers us a different experience. The mystery of death is laid bare for us, in an effort to offer its initiates an opportunity to process death while yet in life. We are reminded time and time again, the great lesson of Memento Mori, to remember that we all must die. As one lecture states, we cannot be too often reminded that we are born to die. Not out of some morbid fascination with death itself, but to help pass on the ancient wisdom captured in the saying “If you die before you die, you do not have to die when you die. It seeks to impress upon its practitioners that not only is there existence beyond the veil of death, but that one can learn to approach the transition without fear, and prepare for it while yet we live.
The contemplation of death is but one of the gifts the Freemasonry offers its acolytes. Yet it would be incomplete were it not for the accompanying lessons of Brotherly love, its assertions of Charity, and its seeking for truth. Together with the acceptance of the impermanence of life, they serve as a road map to a successful transition to the beyond. Together they also frame how those left behind in this temporal existence, should approach the loss of those we cherish. The reminder that “Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. Today he puts forth the tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, and bears his blushing honors thick upon him; the next day comes a frost which nips the shoot, and when he thinks his greatness is still aspiring, he falls, like autumn leaves, to enrich our mother earth.” This evokes in us a sense of the inevitability, but also remind us that it is as natural as birth, as breathing, and as the changing of the seasons.
In this way, if we learn our lessons well, we soften the pains of death with a deeper understanding, a prepared heart, and with love and compassion towards ourselves and those affected around us. We learn to comfort the grieving widow and orphan. We learn that love in action defeats the woes of loss and we honor those fellow pilgrims who pass on by enriching the human experience of those we still share this life with. As we say in our funeral rites, for him the battle day has passed. Our ceremonies are but lessons for the living.
And so we honor our dead, we bolster their memory and we celebrate that in our time, in our lives, we were blessed to experience them. We acknowledge their good effects upon our lives, we carry on the better for what they gave us in their allotted time. We aim to live respected and die regretted, but die we must, and a fate common to us all, cannot be evil. When at last we begin to understand the complex wisdom of death, we understand the cry of the Orater when he say “Dead? No, not dead, but gloriously alive”.
So then, let our hearts soar with joy, let us lift up their names to the heavens where they now prepare a place for our arrival. Let us remember them with love and raise our voices to their merits. They have found victory where we aspire to. Let us not offer a prayer, but an exclamation of gratitude to the great creator, a chorus of voices crying to the heavens in joyous humility. One in our midst has been exalted! Oh supreme architect, receive thy children whom have labored among us in darkness and ignorance, clothe them in your light and love. They have traveled in this life of struggle, and today they are finally home. Oh knights of Rose Croix, fear not death, for God is only Love. He is our sword and our shield. Rest assured, his Temple awaits us. We are one, united in this new law of love, and in his sign we shall conquer, swallowing up death in victory.
Illustrious Brother John Bridegroom 33°
