Day 69 out of 100 to Learn Masonic Ritual and yesterday we spent a second day reading through the Third Degree Obligation. By breaking it down into it’s separate and distinct parts you can concentrate on each paragraph.
Once the Obligation is complete we then have
Learning Masonic Ritual, Day 69 of 100: Post Third Degree Obligation
Today is only a little Ritual that links from the Third Degree Obligation to the Exhortation (pages 178 to 179 in my book of Emulation Ritual). It’s very easy to skip these parts when learning and rehearse and focus all your attention on the larger parts of Ritual, but I’ve deliberately tried to ensure all the Ritual in all the Degrees gets equal attention.
It’s natural to concentrate on the “show-stoppers”, but if you need prompts through-out the Ritual it will stand out and will effectively stop the show.
The first part of today’s learning is the sentence that follows the other two Obligations, with the obvious differences to the Degree. The second part is the paragraph that describes the position of the Square and Compasses. This is in a similar format to the Second Degree. It’s not just the position of them that needs explaining, but also the meaning behind that position. It’s a little memory work but shouldn’t cause a major issue.
Remember, we aren’t looking for word perfectness at the moment, mainly to get a grip on what the sentences are and what they are explaining. The final bit is to ask the Candidate to rise, which is the same in all Degrees bar the name of the Degree itself. Yes, it’s a short one today.
If you have time left over why not have another run through the Obligation, the Installation, or maybe any parts of the the other Degrees you have problems with?