STS. JOHN DAYS. June 24- December 27

Excerpt: www.masonicworld.com

Published By: Daniel Genchi

By history, custom, tradition and ritualistic requirements, the Craft holds dear the days of St. John the Baptist on June 24, and St. John the Evangelist on December 27. A lodge which forgets either forfeits a precious link with the past and loses an opportunity for the renewal of allegiance to everything in Freemasonry symbolized by these Patron Saints. No satisfactory explanation has as yet been advanced to explain why operative Masons adopted two Christian saints, when St. Thomas, the patron of architecture and building, was available.Most Freemasons are agreed that the choice of our ancient brethren was wise. No two great teachers, preachers, wise men, saints, could have been found who better showed in their lives and works the doctrine and teachings of Freemasonry. St. John the Evangelist apparently came into our fraternal system somewhere towards the close of the sixteenth century; at least, we find the earliest authentic lodge minute reference to St. John the evangelist in Edinborough in 1599, although earlier mentions are made in connection with that may be called relatives, if not ancestors, of our Craft. For instance “The Fraternity of St. John” existed in Cologne in 1430.  “St. John’s Masonry” is a distinctive term for Scotch Lodges, many of the older of which took the name of the saint. Thus, in its early records, the Lodge of Scoon and Perth is often called the Lodge of St. John, and the Lodge possesses a beautiful mural painting of the-saint, on the east wall of the lodge room.Other Lodges denominated “St. John’s Lodges” were some of those unaffiliated with either the “Moderns” or the “Ancients” in the period between establishment of the Ancients (1751) and the Reconciliation (1813).In many old histories of the Craft is a quaint legend that St. John the Evangelist became a “Grand Master” at the age of ninety.