MARCH 2019
Welcome to St. Paul’s Lodge Newsletter. This regular monthly communication is intended to keep you, as well as friends of the Lodge, informed of recent activities and upcoming events. Your input and feedback is welcome and appreciated.

UNITED METHODIST CHURCH TO HOLD SERVICES AT ST. PAUL’S LODGE
The Litchfield Planning and Zoning Commission has approved the United Methodist Church’s plans to begin holding Sunday Services for the foreseeable future at St. Paul’s Lodge. Due to the decreasing number of congregants and the financial burden of maintaining their current building, the trustees of the United Methodist Church are planning to sell their 139-year-old place of worship at 69 West Street. Our thanks go out to WB Phil Birkett and WB Mark Dzurnak for developing and coordinating our new relationship with the United Methodist Church of Litchfield. This promises to a mutually beneficial relationship for both organizations.

GAME DINNER TABLE LODGE MARCH 20, 2019
St. Paul’s Lodge will be holding this year’s Game Dinner Table Lodge on March 20, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. at the lodge. This will be a joint communication with the brothers of King Solomon’s Lodge No. 7. JW Brother Jamie Fisher will be preparing another of his now famous culinary extravaganzas. If you have attended in the past, you know what a great event this is. If you haven’t, you owe yourself a treat. A few tickets are still available. The cost is $40.00. Tickets may be obtained by calling WM Pat Iannuzzi at (860) 710-1246 or WB Chuck Harrell at (860) 374-8308. We hope you will join us for a festive evening of celebration and camaraderie.

WALK A MILE IN HER SHOES® PROJECT ON AGAIN FOR 2019
St. Paul’s Lodge will again be participating in the Susan B. Anthony Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® fund-raising event on May 19, 2019 in Litchfield Center. This is a community event where men and boys lead the way on the road to end sexual and domestic violence. Brothers in full regalia will march in a parade that will pass in front of St. Paul’s Lodge on Meadow Street wearing red high heel shoes (optional) and red bow ties. All associated costs will be covered by a donation from St. Paul’s Lodge.

UNION LODGE No. 96 NIGHT
During May, we would like to hold a Union Lodge No. 96 Night to honor and celebrate brothers who were formerly members of Union Lodge in Thomaston. The format and details of this event have yet to be organized. We need some input from our former Union Lodge brothers before moving forward. Please contact WM Pat Iannuzzi with your suggestions (860) 710-1246.

UPCOMING EVENTS
March 13th: Special Communication. Buffer Dinner – 6:30 pm. Meeting 7:30 pm. EA Degree
March 20th: S.C. Game Dinner Table Lodge – 6:30 pm. Joint Communication with King Solomon’s Lodge No. 7
April 3rd: S.C. Pot Luck Dinner – 6:30 pm. Meeting 7:30 p.m.
April 17th: S.C. Buffet Dinner – 6:30 pm. Meeting 7:30 pm. FC Degree

A LITTLE MASONIC KNOWLEDGE

In Operative Masonry, an ashlar is a large building stone. One that is rough cut from a quarry is called a rough ashlar and one that a squared and cut more or less true on all faces is referred to as a perfect ashlar. In days of old, apprentice masons cut and raised the rough ashlars from the stone quarry under the supervision of more experienced craftsman, called Fellow Crafts. The work was accomplished under the watchful eye of the Master Mason.

In building an edifice, perfect ashlars are placed adjacent to each other so as to permit very thin joints between them. In speculative masonry, however, rough ashlars and perfect ashlars are not just two pieces of stone. They serve as clear representations of what we are and what we hope to become. They allude to man’s moral and spiritual life.

Rough and perfect ashlars bear the same relationship to each other as ignorance does to knowledge, death to life, and light to darkness. A rough ashlar (crude, natural stone), is a Masonic a symbol of man’s natural state of ignorance and the profane world. A perfect ashlar (hewed, squared, polished and smooth) is a symbol of the state of perfection attained by means of education and discovery. It signifies that a man, who symbolically begins as a rough ashlar can improve the state of his spiritual and moral being to become, like the perfect ashlar, developed and refined.

The rough and perfect ashlars also represent the hope that as a Mason makes his final journey to that Grand Lodge above, he leaves behind a reputation and a legacy as a wise counselor and a pillar of strength and stability; that he be a perfect example by which younger Masons may test the correctness and value of their own contribution to the Masonic order. There are very few Freemasons who have not been in both the rough and perfect ashlar state-of-being at some point in their lives.