‘At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’

    

Moises Gomez photo

Without yet being present, I’ll begin coverage of Masonic Week 2022 with word from the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees. Yesterday, MVS Grand Master Mohamad Yatim, accompanied by Grand Council officers, visited Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

While this solemn activity has become especially important in Masonic circles in recent years, the fraternity paying respect at the Tomb is a tradition. For instance, on October 19, 1925, the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction) visited the Tomb, taking a break from its deliberations at the House of the Temple.

In 1922, just several months after the Tomb’s installation, New York’s RW Bro. Solomon Holzer, Past Master of Daniel Carpenter Lodge 643, wrote to Grand Secretary Robert Kenworthy, saying he thought our Grand Lodge ought to encourage the Masonic Service Association to “place a suitably inscribed bronze tablet” on the Tomb, and should the MSA not succeed, the Grand Lodge itself ought to do it with the goal of holding a ceremony on November 4, the Masonic birthday of George Washington. I don’t think the idea went anywhere.

I expect to arrive at our hotel this afternoon, just in time to witness Adam Kendall take his place among the Society of Blue Friars. See you there.