RELIEF
The tenets of Freemasonry are brotherly love,
relief, and truth. These are the doctrines of
the Fraternity, the speculative truths which
are taught to initiates.
A tenet is something held firmly; a doctrine
is a working principle. The tenets of
Freemasonry, therefore, are the working
principles which every Brother should hold,
and practice with fervency and zeal.
" `Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished."
Unfortunately, there is a wide gap between
the ideal and the actual practice of the
"average" Mason. While this is characteristic
of most human endeavors, a Builder cannot use
that fact as an excuse or justification for
his own failure or insufficiency.
Freemasonry's doctrines are not dogmas; they
are not authoritatively imposed. They are
accepted by each initiate, of his own free
will and accord, as part of the universal
truth which the Fraternity attempts to teach
and to exemplify before the world.
Among the reasons why some members of the
Craft fail to make their tenets working
principles may be insufficient instruction.
Brotherly love, relief, and truth are
described in the third part of the lecture
for the Entered Apprentice degree; but how
many members remember those explanations?
Indeed, aren't there many who have never
heard them? Too much Masonic instruction is
stream-lined or omitted, in order to make
meetings shorter. "The great aim we have in
view" is sacrificed for the sake of mass
appeal, while the individual's need for
Masonic indoctrination is ignored and then
forgotten.
This Short Talk Bulletin is intended to help
those Brethren who have not received
sufficient instruction about the second tenet
of Freemasonry, - relief. It will attempt to
show that Masonic relief is not merely the
giving of alms or contributing to worthy
benevolent enterprises. It will emphasize
relief as a working principle, a necessary
mode of conduct for the individual Mason in
his efforts to discipline himself in "the way
of initiation", to make a good man better and
consequently happier.
One of the first, and one of the most
dramatic lessons taught to every initiate is
the importance of helping others. To relieve
the distress of the unhappy victims of
misfortune is a duty expected of all men, but
it is particularly incumbent on Masons
because they believe that an unbreakable
chain of sincere affection binds them close
together. The lesson presented in the ritual
of the first degree, however, makes clear
that such relief is not to be restricted to
Masons.
The initiate's moment of symbolic destitution
is not intended to teach him merely how it
feels to be poor. He is also made to feel
embarrassed by his inability to contribute.
The memory of that chagrin should help to
make relief a working principle for every
thoughtful Mason.
Destitution, however, may be a matter of the
spirit as well as of the pocket. Every one is
challenged much more frequently to give
comfort, encouragement, hope, kindness,
patience, praise, sympathy, and understanding
than to contribute money to alleviate
distress. No man who has trained himself to
exemplify brotherly love need ever be
embarrassed by his inability to soothe the
unhappy, to compassionate their miseries, and
to restore peace to their troubled minds.
No other kind of relief is more needed in a
troubled world. The poor in spirit suffer
greater deprivation than the economically
destitute. This is why the monitorial lecture
about relief stresses the spiritual
activities enumerated in the preceding
paragraph. It makes no mention of money. It
emphasizes the fact that relief is primarily
a matter of sharing one's feelings of
brotherly love, whereby we are taught to
regard the whole human species as one family,
as created by one Almighty Parent and
inhabitants of the same planet, and designed
to aid, support, and protect each other.
Once a Mason has really trained himself to
regard every man as his brother, it becomes
natural for him to feel the impulses which
prompt him to relieve the distressed, whether
they suffer physical wants, fears, sorrows,
wrongs, or bitter grief. This is where the
individual Brother plays his part in creating
a favorable image of the Craft. Its
importance must be emphasized in the
instruction of initiates.
In many jurisdictions a new member's first
experience with Masonic relief is in
contributing to the Masonic Home and/or
Hospital. Part of his initiation fee may have
been assigned to that. As long as he
continues his membership, he makes an annual
contribution to the operating funds of the
institution, in the form of a per capita tax
levied by Grand Lodge. In other Grand Lodges
the individual Mason gives to a general
charity fund. Unfortunately, per capita taxes
rarely arouse the generous feeling that one
is flying to the relief of a distressed
worthy Brother. They become a routine
requirement to comply with, uninspiring to
most, and resented by a few.
Brethren need instruction in the purposes and
accomplishments of the Grand Lodge charity
funds. Where a Home or Hospital is involved,
every Brother, especially a new one, needs to
be told how his money is being used for that
purpose. Such an explanation should be part
of his initiatory instruction. A descriptive
brochure will do much to enlighten him; but
the best antidote to lack of knowledge and
indifference about the Home is a visit to the
institution. Only such an experience will
give the individual the pride he needs in a
cooperative act of relief. Only such a visit
will make relief a working doctrine for him.
It's important that the individual member
acquire such an understanding. Modern life,
increasing costs, and especially the
tremendous growth and mobility of populations
have made it necessary to organize larger and
larger cooperative acts of relief, like Homes
and Hospitals, Benevolent Foundations, and
Masonic Camps. While they make possible
greater assistance and more complete relief
for distressed individuals, they have taken
away from individual donors a sense of direct
participation, and its resultant joy. One of
the problems of our contemporary Fraternity
is to restore to the individual his feeling
of participation in making its tenets working
doctrines.
Fundamentally, only the Worshipful Master can
really solve this problem for the individuals
who belong to his lodge. He can arrange to
see that every new Mason is taken for a tour
of the Masonic Home and Hospital. He has to
be alert and eager to act whenever he hears
of a local opportunity to give charitable
assistance. He has to stimulate the
membership to enjoy such service, whether it
be husking a neighbor's corn while he is in
the hospital, painting a house for a
paralytic Brother, or supplying a basket of
food for a family which is temporarily in
need. It was such direct participation in the
life of the community, without fanfare or
publicity, which first earned for Freemasonry
an image of men of good will.
The records of practically every lodge reveal
praiseworthy efforts to furnish help, aid,
and assistance to less fortunate brethren and
neighbors in the local community. But how
recent and how frequent are those examples?
No one has seriously answered the questions
of M.W. Brother Dwight L. Smith of Indiana
when he wrote two years ago:
"In how many Masonic halls is the Box of
Fraternal Assistance passed? In how many
halls could such a box be found? . . . How
often are the members of a lodge called upon
to assist in person, in some act of true
Masonic charity? Are they ever asked to visit
the sick, or is that assignment turned over
to a retired Brother who has nothing else to
do? . . . In far too many lodges the payment
of the annual per capita tax to the Grand
Lodge is looked upon as the full discharge of
all obligations pertaining to charity - an
act which relieves every individual member of
further concern for the year ending December
31."
Then recognizing the tremendous power of the
individual Mason when he is properly
instructed and spiritually motivated, Brother
Smith asserted: "Given the challenge to
practice Masonic charity in its intimate and
personal form, almost any lodge and almost
any individual Mason will respond with
enthusiasm. . . . I want to know what
individual Masons are doing to relieve
distress - in their own communities, by their
own efforts."
When the individual Mason was first brought
to light, he was taught by a symbolic act of
destitution that he must respond to distress
as an individual. It was not a committee or a
foundation that he was asked to assist. It
was an individual friend or Brother he was
taught to help. Such neighbors are always at
hand, especially if one remembers that all
men need spiritual relief and assistance no
matter what their economic circumstances may
be.
To soothe the unhappy is the first
description of relief given in the lectures.
With enough imagination, one can convince
himself that he has helped to produce that
result by his contribution to the Masonic
Home, a Shriners Hospital for Crippled
Children, or the Grand Lodge Charity Fund. To
see a bewildered elderly widow settled
comfortably in a pleasant room at the Home,
her fears of want, her dread of illness, her
loneliness soothed by the loving
ministrations of the staff - all this can be
imagined. But does such a mental image stir
one's affection and joy to the same extent
that direct relief to a neighbor can do?
That unhappy Brother whose "proposal for the
good of the lodge" has been rejected by an
overwhelming negative vote - has anyone
realized the taste of ashes in his mouth and
tried to lessen the hurt and embarrassment to
his feelings? To soothe the unhappy is not
only incumbent on Masons in charitable
programs; it is a necessary chord in the
harmony of the lodge. It is not enough to
reject a Brother's well-meant but undesirable
proposal. He must be helped to understand
that his zeal for the lodge is truly
appreciated, but that his suggestions are
presently unwise or impossible of
achievement. In this sense it can accurately
be said, "Relief begins at home."
To sympathize with their misfortunes is the
second example of relief enumerated in the
lectures. Sympathy, if it would really
provide relief, must be more than feeling
with another person. It must be more than
pity; it must be deep compassion, the ability
to suffer with the victim of misfortune. Only
by such a deep involvement can one feel the
need to act, the urgent necessity to do
something to help. Relief then becomes a
working principle.
It is easy to write a check to assist in the
rehabilitation of a community wrecked by
disaster, like hurricane, earthquake, flood,
or volcanic eruption. Such catastrophes are
exceedingly dramatic. They compel our
attention because of the immediate need
caused by overwhelming destruction. Men
hasten to aid, support and protect each other
when the forces of nature inflict such
cataclysms upon the society of mankind.
In such cases, men respond to the needs of
the unfortunate as if they were personally
involved. Support for Red Cross disaster
relief on a global scale has demonstrated
this frequently. The generous help from all
Masonic groups during World War II to
establish Masonic Service Centers at military
camps was a similar response. In times of
peril and of cataclysm, men find it easy to
sympathize with the misfortunes of others. In
fact, their imaginations are stirred enough
to display the third kind of relief described
in the Masonic lectures, "to compassionate
their miseries." Relief has become a working
principle.
But there are other victims of misfortune
whose "miseries" are less dramatic because
they are prolonged or more commonplace. Yet
they need and deserve sympathy and
compassion, as well as practical, material
relief.
Does the lodge have a member with a weakness
which creates difficulties for his family and
the community? Even good men sometimes "go
haywire" under intense pressures, like those
of an unhappy marriage, too competitive a
business situation, or frustrated ambition to
serve the lodge. These problems develop
gradually. Sometimes they are too patiently
overlooked. By some they are ignored. "It's
none of my business." But where is brotherly
relief - i.e., sympathy and compassion,
tactful but practical advice, understanding
and encouragement - more directly needed and
more properly given? What do the "points of
fellowship" really mean? Relief must be a
working principle within the lodge itself.
To visit the sick is one of the oldest
traditions of Masonic relief. It needs re-
emphasizing in the life of every "well-
governed lodge". Each new Mason should be
trained to serve on the sick committee; he
needs to share in the joy of the simplest but
most satisfying "program of relief". He needs
to make this kind of relief an active working
principle.
The monitorial lecture concludes its
description of this subject with a statement
that makes relief more than a moral
obligation incumbent upon Masons; it lifts
the idea to the level of a universal
spiritual principle: "To restore peace to
troubled minds is the great aim we have in
view." That requires more than a piece of
silver in the collection box and more than a
check for a charitable institution. That
requires an individual commitment to a way of
thinking and feeling which will affect a
man's personal relationships with every other
human being, because every man has some need
which requires love and understanding.
This is the same idea expressed by the
Apostle Paul which has been rendered so
poetically in the King James version of the
New Testament: "Though I have the gift of
prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and
all knowledge: and though I have all faith,
so that I could remove mountains, . . . and
though I bestow all my goods to feed the
poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
and have not charity (i.e., love), it
profiteth me nothing."
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