Knightsbridge Reserve Forces Lodge

As part of their New Member Engagement work, Visiting Officers regularly meet new Masons – indeed it is one of their greatest pleasures. Often, they also get to hear them speak, either in their first speeches as Initiates, or in other contexts early in their Masonic careers.

Visiting Officer W Bro Alan Rushbrook was recently so impressed with the speech of recent initiate Bro Florin Ionita that he asked for a copy.  Bro Florin was initiated into Richard Eve Lodge No 2772 in February this year, and English is not his first language (he is Romanian). But he has put many a first speech to shame and quite the lump in some more senior Masons’ throats.

Here is the speech in full.

Worshipful Master, Brother Wardens and Brethren all,

First of all, I must warn you that this speech is a bit of “a longer skirt”!

About 45 years ago, my mother brought me to the school uniform store to buy me my first uniform. While I was proudly trying it, admiring myself in the mirror, she kneeled in front of me; and after kissing me on the forehead, she told me, smiling: “you’re a big boy now, you’re going to school!” And so, in that very moment, I started acting like a bigger boy.

The same goes with Freemasonry! Please allow me to explain why:

As an adult, I was always admiring our proud brotherhood and I read a lot about it before becoming a Freemason. “Live respected and die regretted!” – isn’t that a brilliant purpose for a man’s life? “We take good men and make them better!”

Well… I wasn’t so sure that one was going to work on me, before becoming a Freemason myself! I couldn’t really see how is would be possible. Everybody knows that you can’t teach an old horse new tricks, and in my ignorance, I thought that I was pretty good already!

But after I received my first summons, the one immediately after my Initiation, something strange started to happen. I found myself acting more compassionately than I used to, in many situations. I found myself being more careful in the way I treat people around me. I soon found myself becoming a better person, day by day.

Noticing this, I wondered to myself: what is going on with me? It can’t be because of Freemasonry – after all, I had only just recently been initiated! They didn’t have time to ‘do’ anything to me! I realised that receiving my first Masonic apron made me feel the same way as I had felt when I received my first school uniform. I remembered my mother in the school uniform store, and how her words and my first uniform made me

act like a bigger boy! It was a revelation: my first apron is just like my first uniform! The Mother Lodge words on my initiation ritual were just like my mother’s words in the uniform store. And I started to realise that the statement “We take good men and make them better” actually works – by default.

The French have a saying: “Noblesse oblige” Or, as Uncle Ben would teach Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility”. I realised that the simple fact of becoming a member of our noble institution imputes the obligation of acting honourably and taking ever more responsibility for your actions. It’s not that this obligation is imposed to you; it’s simply the fact that wearing your first apron, just like your first school uniform, gives a man the urge to act a better man, just like the bigger boy.

Thank you all, for giving me the opportunity to feel this way and for all your support on my still young Masonic journey!

Yours respectfully,

Bro Florin Ionita