Delivered by
Most Illustrious John B. Love III 33° KYCH KCT
Most Illustrious Grand Thrice Illustrious Master
Embassy Suites by Hilton Grapevine — DFW Airport North
Saturday, June 6, 2026 · Anno Depositionis 3026
Most Illustrious Robert Brian Cook, Grand Master of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Texas, Right Illustrious Companions, distinguished officers of both Grand Lines, visiting dignitaries, companions all, and honored guests:
There are days when a presiding officer steps to a podium to speak of the ordinary labor of our Councils — reports rendered, resolutions passed, the patient work of keeping the Craft. This is not one of those days. Today we do not merely conduct business. Today we set our hands to a Compact, and in the signing of it we take a step that Masons in this state, and far beyond it, have long been moving toward.
Let me say plainly what this Compact is. Two Grand Councils, each charged with the very same sacred work — the lost secrets, the sacred deposit, the preserved Word — declare today that we recognize one another as the companions we have always been. It is not a merger. It does not fold us into one body, nor should it. It honors the distinct history and labor of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Texas, and it honors the work of the Most Illustrious Prince Hall Grand Council Royal Select Masters of Texas and Its Jurisdictions. What it declares is simpler and older than any new arrangement: that the legitimacy of our labor was never in question, and that the only thing ever wanting between us was the open acknowledgment we offer one another this day.
Companions, our own degrees teach us precisely the spirit of this moment.
We are taught of the secret vault beneath the Temple, where the wisest of the builders deposited that which was most precious — the Word that was lost, the treasures of the sanctuary — preserved so that when the time was right, what had been kept might be recovered and carried up into the light. That is the burden of the Cryptic Rite: that the most valuable things are not meant to stay hidden. They are meant to be brought forth, in the proper season, and shared.
Brethren, that is what we do here. The Word was never meant to be guarded behind a single door. It was meant to pass freely among the faithful. Today two Grand Councils open the vault to one another, so that what each has preserved is held, recognized, and honored in common. We are not closing a chapter today. We are opening a door — and we are leaving it open.
And we do not do it alone. Even as we sign, our companions of the Royal Arch are setting their own hands to the same recognition, that the light might pass freely among all the companions of this jurisdiction. This is how it ought to be. Recognition begets recognition. Light kindles light. One honest step invites the next.
Freemasonry has always claimed to meet men upon the level and to part upon the square. For too long, in too many places, that claim ran ahead of the practice. Days like this one are how the practice catches up to the principle — not in a single grand gesture that solves everything, but in a deliberate step, taken in good faith, by men willing to extend a hand across a table. That is all progress has ever been. A step. And then another.
So let me name this for what it is. This is not an ending. It is a milestone on a road that runs well past this room and well past this state — toward a Craft where no honest Mason questions whether his brother’s labor is real, where recognition is offered as readily as it is earned, and where the door, once opened, is never quietly closed again. We will not see the end of that road from here. But we can see the next step. And today, companions, we take it together.
To my companions across this table, and to my own: I am honored to call you what you have always been — Brothers. Let the record show that on this day, in Grapevine, two Grand Councils chose the level over distance, and the square over silence. And let those who come after us take it further than we did.
My life you may take, but my integrity, never.
Most Illustrious John B. Love III 33° KYCH KCT
Most Illustrious Grand Thrice Illustrious Master
Most Illustrious Prince Hall Grand Council Royal Select Masters of Texas and Its Jurisdictions