How familiar the phrase is. No lodge is ever opened or closed in due form without using it. Yet how few know how old it really is, much less what a deep meaning it has in it. Like so many old and lovely things, it is so near to us that we do not see it.
As far back as we can go in the annals of the Craft we find this old phrase. It's form betrays it's age. The word mote is an Anglo-Saxon word, derived from an anomalous verb, motan. Chaucer uses the exact phrase in the same sense in which we use it, meaning "So may it be." It is found in the Regius Poem, the oldest document of the Craft, just as we use it today.
As everyone knows, it is the Masonic form of the ancient Amen which echoes through the ages, gathering meaning and music as it goes until it is one of the richest and most haunting of words. At first, only a sign of assent on the part either of an individual or of an assembly, to words of prayer or praise, it has come to stand as a sentinel at the gateway of silence.
When we have uttered all that we can utter, and our poor words seem like ripples on the bosom of the unspoken, somehow this familiar phrase gathers up all that is left; our dumb yearnings, our deepest longings, and bears them aloft to One who understands. In some strange way it seems to speak for us into the very ear of God the things for which words were never made.
So, naturally, it has a place of honor among us. At the marriage altar it speaks its blessing as young love walks toward the bliss or sorrow of hidden years. It stands beside the cradle when we dedicate our little ones to the holy life, mingling its benediction with our vows. At the grave-side it mutters its sad response to the shadowy Amen which Death pronounces over our friends.
When, in our turn, we see the end of the road, and would make a last will and testament, leaving our earthly possesions to those whom we love, the old legal phrase asks us to repeat after it: "In the name of God, Amen." And with us, as with Gerontius in his Dream, the last words we hear when the voices of earth grow faint and the silence of God covers us, it is the old Amen, So Mote it be.
So, too, in the Lodge, at opening, at closing, and in the hour of initiation. No Mason ever enters upon any great or important undertaking without invoking the aid and blessing of Deity. And he ends his prayer with the old phrase, "So Mote it be." Which is another way of saying: The will of God be done. Or, whatever be the answer of God to his prayer: So be it- because it is God's will and God's will is always wise and right.
What, then, is the meaning of this old phrase, so interwoven with all our Masonic lore, so simple, so tender, so haunting? It has two meanings for us everywhere, in the Church or in the Lodge. First, it is the assent of man to the way and will of God; assent to His commands; assent to His Providence, even when a tender, terrible stroke of death takes from us one much loved and leaves us forlorn.
Still, somehow, we must say: "So it is, so be it." It is a wise man, a brave man, who, baffled by the woes of life, when disaster follows disaster, can nevertheless accept his lot as a part of the will of God and say, though it may almost choke him to say it; So Mote it be. It is not blind submission, nor dumb resignation, but a wise reconciliation to the will of the Eternal.
The other meaning of the phrase is even more wonderful; it is the assent of God to the aspiration of man. Man can bear much; anything, perhaps, if he feels that God knows, cares and feels for him and with him. If God says Amen, So it is, to our faith and hope and love, it links our perplexed feelings, and helps us to see, however dimly, that there is a wise and good purpose in life, despite its sorrow and suffering, and that we are not at the mercy of Fate or the whim of Chance.
The place of prayer in Masonry is not a mere matter of form and ritual. It is vital and profound. As a man enters the Lodge, as an initiate, prayer is offered for him to God in whom he puts his trust. Later, in a crisis of his initiation, he must pray for himself, orally or mentally, as his heart may elect. It is not just a ceremony; it is basic in the faith and spirit of Masonry. Still later, in a scene which no Mason ever forgets, when the shadow is darkest, and the most precious thing a Mason can desire seems lost, a prayer is offered. It is truly a great prayer, to join in which is to place ourselves in the very hands of God, as all must do in the end, trust His will and way, following where no path is, into the soft and fascinating darkness which men call death. And the response of the Lodge to that prayer, as to all others offered at its altar, is the old, challenging phrase: "So Mote it be!
Brother, do not be ashamed to pray, as you are taught in the Lodge and the church. It is a part of the sweetness and sanity of life, refreshing the soul and making clear the mind. There is more wisdom in a whispered prayer than in all the libraries in the world. It is not our business to instruct God. He knows what things we have need of before we ask Him. He does not need our prayer, but we do- .. if only to make us acquainted with the best Friend we have.
So Mote it be.