SO MOTE IT BE
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 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.  Its form betrays its 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 become to stand as a sentinel at the gateway of silence.

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 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 wise and right.
SO MOTE IT BE
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