The three Masonic roses
Freemasonry is a certain attitude to life of an individual in relation to his fellow human beings. This attitude to life is characterized by ethical principles, honourability, tolerance, charity and religiosity. The rituals of the Freemasons, their symbolic language and, above all, their basic spiritual attitude can essentially be traced back to the medieval cathedral building lodges. Just as the stonemasons of the cathedral building lodges worked the rough, unhewn stones with hard work and acquired skill into well-measured, perfect building stones that alone were suitable for construction, so the Freemasons work symbolically, but no less hard, on perfecting their personality to make it suitable for the construction of a temple of humanity. This may sound rather idealistic, but it is anything but unrealistic. The best example of this is the Constitution of the United States of America, the first constitution in history to enshrine the right to the dignity of every individual. The authors were almost without exception English, French and German Freemasons. Especially in a time like ours, which is characterized by material striving, by the ruthless struggle for power and possessions, which turns people into “winners” or “losers” in today’s parlance, it is precisely at this time that there must be a space more than ever, in which like-minded people can be found to form an appropriate counterweight in the preservation of the eternal values that are indispensable for humanity, a space for reflection, a workshop in which “stones are hewn” that are suitable for building the temple of humanity.
The Freemasons work in this space.