Yesterday in our 100 Day Study Guide for Master Elects we learnt the Second Degree Obligation. I hope that you agree that it doesn’t really warrant two full days spent just on it as we did with the First Degree Obligation. Don’t worry you aren’t word perfect with it and thinking we are moving through too quickly, I’d be very surprised if you did manage to learn it completely in just one day.
his is just our first learning session on the Second Degree, and we’ll be coming back to it for more learning and revision in the next week or so, plus more learning and revision in the weeks leading up to the ceremony itself. This leads up on to…
Learning Masonic Ritual, Day 48 of 100: Second Degree Entrusting
This is quite a chunk today, and starts at the end of the Second Degree Obligation, goes through Second Degree Entrusting and concludes with the explanation of the Word (pages 130-134 in my book of Emulation Ritual).
When planning out this 100 Day plan today’s work was going to be spread out over three days, but today when I went through it I realised that combining it into one day is feasible, though does require a little work. How I initially broke it down into three parts is still useful for learning it, as each is a distinct part of ritual:
- Post Obligation (Sealing the Obligation and position of the Square and Compasses),
- Second Degree Entrusting (the biggest chunk of today’s work),
- Explanation of the Word.
The reason I feel this can be condensed into one day of learning is because when you have been going through the offices you have already learnt most of the Entrusting and explanation of the Word as Senior Deacon.
I’ll admit there are some differences, and it was probably a couple of years ago since you held the Senior Deacon’s office, but you’ll be surprised how much of it you will be able to whizz through after just a single read through. If you weren’t Senior Deacon (unlikely, but possible) or you are having issues with today’s work then again don’t worry.
This is our first run through and we are aiming for familiarity, not presentation standard, but by the end of the session you should at least now the running order of the Entrusting, even if you can’t recall exactly what each abbreviation in the text stands for. Good work!