SO MOTE IT BE
How familiar the phrase is. No Lodge is ever opened or closed, in due form,
without using it. Yet how few know how old it is, much less what a deep meaning
it has in it. Like so many old and lovely things, it is so near to us that we do
not see it.
As far back as we can go in the annals of the Craft we find this old phrase.
Its form betrays its age. The word MOTE is an Anglo-Saxon word, derived from an
anomalous verb, MOTAN. Chaucer uses the exact phrase in the same sense in which
we use it, meaning "So May It Be." It is found in the Regius Poem, the oldest
document of the Craft, just as we use it today.
As everyone knows, it is the Masonic form of the ancient AMEN which echoes
through the ages, gathering meaning and music as it goes until it is one of the
richest and most haunting of words. At first only a sign of assent, on the part
either of an individual or of an assembly, to words of prayer or praise, it has
become to stand as a sentinel at the gateway of silence.
When we have uttered all that we can utter, and our poor words seem like
ripples on the bosom of the unspoken, somehow this familiar phrase gathers up
all that is left - our dumb yearnings, our deepest longings - and bears them
aloft to One who understands. In some strange way it seems to speak for us into
the very ear of God the things for which words were never made.
So, naturally, it has a place of honor among us. At the marriage Altar it
speaks its blessing as young love walks toward the bliss or sorrow of hidden
years. It stands beside the cradle when we dedicate our little ones to the Holy
life, mingling its benediction with our vows. At the grave side it utters its
sad response to the shadowy AMEN which death pronounces over our friends.
When, in our turn, we see the end of the road, and would make a last will and
testament, leaving our earnings and savings to those whom we love, the old legal
phrase asks us to repeat after it: "In The Name Of God, AMEN." And with us, as
with Gerontius in his Dream, the last word we hear when the voices of earth grow
faint and the silence of God covers us, is the old AMEN, So Mote It Be.
How impressively it echoes through the Book of Holy Law. We hear it in the
Psalms, as chorus answers to chorus, where it is sometimes reduplicated for
emphasis. In the talks of Jesus with his friends it has a striking use, hidden
in the English version. The oft-repeated phrase, "Verily, Verily I Say Unto
You," if rightly translated means, AMEN, AMEN, I say unto you." Later, in the
Epistles of Paul, the word AMEN becomes the name of Christ, who is the AMEN of
God to the faith of man.
So, too, in the Lodge, at opening, at closing, and in the hour of initiation.
No Mason ever enters upon any great or important undertaking without invoking
the aid of Deity. And he ends his prayer with the old phrase, "So Mote It Be."
Which is another way of saying: "The Will Of God Be Done." Or, whatever be the
answer of God to his prayer: "So Be It - because it is wise and right.
What, then, is the meaning of this old phrase, so interwoven with all our
Masonic lore, simple, tender, haunting? It has two meanings for us everywhere,
in the Church, or in the Lodge. First, it is assent of man to the way and Will
Of God; assent to His Commands; assent to His Providence, even when a tender,
terrible stroke of death takes from us one much loved and leaves us forlorn.
Still, somehow, we must say:" So it is; so be it. He is a wise man, a brave
man; who, baffled by the woes of life, when disaster follows fast and follows
faster, can nevertheless accept his lot as a part of the Will of God and say,
though it may almost choke him to say it: "So Mote It Be." It is not blind
submission, nor dumb resignation, but a wise reconciliation to the Will of the
Eternal.
The other meaning of the phrase is even more wonderful; it is the assent of
God to the aspiration of man. Man can bear so much - anything, perhaps - if he
feels that God knows, cares and feels for him and with him. If God says Amen, So
it is, to our faith and hope and love; it links our perplexed meanings, and
helps us to see, however dimly, or in a glass darkly, that there is a wise and
good purpose in life, despite its sorrow and suffering, and that we are not at
the mercy of Fate or the whim of Chance.
Does God speak to man, confirming his faith and hope? If so, how? Indeed yes!
God is not the great I Was, but the great I Am, and He is neither deaf nor dumb.
In Him we live and move and have our being - He Speaks to us in nature, in the
moral law, and in our own hearts, if we have ears to hear. But He speaks most
clearly in the Book of Holy Law which lies open upon our Alter.
Nor is that all. Some of us hold that the Word Of God "Became Flesh and Dwelt
Among Us, Full Of Grace and Truth," in a life the loveliest ever lived among
men, showing us what life is, what it means, and to what fine issues it ascends
when we do the Will of God on earth as it is done in Heaven, No one of us but
grows wistful when he thinks of the life of Jesus, however far we fall below it.
Today men are asking the question: Does it do any good to pray? The man who
actually prays does not ask such a question. As well ask if it does a bird any
good to sing, or a flower to bloom? Prayer is natural and instinctive in man. We
are made so. Man is made for prayer, as sparks ascending seek the sun. He would
not need religious faith if the objects of it did not exist.
Are prayers ever answered? Yes, always, as Emerson taught us long ago. Who
rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered - and that is as far as
we need to go. The deepest desire, the ruling motive of a man, is his actual
prayer, and it shapes his life after its form and color. In this sense all
prayer is answered, and that is why we ought to be careful what we pray for -
because in the end we always get it.
What, then is the good of prayer? It makes us repose on the unknown with
hope; it makes us ready for life. It is a recognition of laws and the thread of
our conjunction with them. It is not the purpose of prayer to beg or make God do
what we want done. Its purpose is to bring us to do the Will of God, which is
greater and wiser than our will. It is not to use God, but to be used by Him in
the service of His plan.
Can man by prayer change the Will of God? No, and Yes. True prayer does not
wish or seek to change the larger Will of God, which involves in its sweep and
scope the duty and destiny of humanity. But it can and does change the Will of
God concerning us, because it changes our will and attitude towards Him, which
is the vital thing in prayer for us.
For example, if a man living a wicked life, we know what the Will of God will
be for him. All evil ways have been often tried, and we know what the end is,
just as we know the answer to a problem in geometry. But if a man who is living
wickedly changes his way of living and his inner attitude, he changes the Will
of God - if not His Will, at least His Intention. That is, he attains what even
the Divine Will could not give him and do for him unless it had been effected by
His Will and Prayer.
The place of Prayer in Masonry is not perfunctory. It is not a mere matter of
form and rote. It is vital and profound. As a man enters the Lodge as an
initiate, prayer is offered for him, to God, in whom he puts his trust. Later,
in a crisis of his initiation, he must pray for himself, orally or mentally as
his heart may elect. It is not just a ceremony; it is basic in the faith and
spirit of Masonry. Still later, in a scene which no Mason ever forgets, when the
shadow is darkest, and the most precious thing a Mason can desire or seek seems
lost, in the perplexity and despair of the Lodge, a prayer is offered. As
recorded in our Monitors, it is a mosaic of Bible words, in which the grim facts
of life and death are set forth in stark reality, and appeal is made to the pity
and light of God.
It is truly a great prayer, to join in which is to place ourselves in the
very hands of God, as all must do in the end, trust His Will and way, following
where no path is into the soft and fascinating darkness which men call death.
And the response of the Lodge to that prayer, as to all others offered at its
Altar, is the old, challenging phrase, "So Mote It Be!"
Brother, do not be ashamed to pray, as you are taught in the Lodge and the
Church. It is a part of the sweetness and sanity of life, refreshing the soul
and making clear the mind. There is more wisdom in a whispered prayer than in
all the libraries of the world. It is not our business to instruct God. He knows
what things we have need for before we ask him. He does not need our prayer, but
we do - if only to make us acquainted with the best Friend we have.
The greatest of all teachers of the soul left us a little liturgy called the
Lord's Prayer. He told us to use it each for himself, in the closet when the
door is shut and the din and hum and litter of the world is outside. Try it
Brother; it will sweeten life, make its load lighter, its joy brighter, and the
way of duty plainer.
Two tiny prayers have floated down to us from ages agone, which are worth
remembering; one by a great Saint, the other by two brothers. "Grant Me, Lord,
ardently to desire, wisely to study, rightly to understand and perfectly to
fulfill that which pleaseth Thee." And the second is after the manner: "May two
brothers enjoy and serve Thee together, and so live today that we may be worthy
to live tomorrow."
"SO MOTE IT BE"
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