I don't really have a lot of time to write this out, so forgive me if it seems incoherent. I really could use some instruction here.
I am completely ignorant about Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ. I grew up in the South where it is widespread and common. In my young adulthood, I knew many people who were Masons or Eastern Stars. I was never told that there was anything wrong with it.
So I have been doing some research over the years on my own about it, but I am still ill informed. Yet, I am constantly discovering little things that are very, very troubling.
Yesterday, I discovered that the term "traveling man" is a Masonic code word for fellow masons to identify themselves. I thought I'd google it and to my surprise I found blog after blog asking this question: "How do I respond when a Mason asks me if I'm a traveling man?"
Then in the same conversation someone said "Why do you think John Wayne coined the phrase "Howdy Pilgrim"? I knew John Wayne was a Mason but I just didn't really connect the two. I looked that up too and it does seem that the Masons use the pilgrim reference a lot. I found old poems in their magazines referring to their pilgrim journeys, there is a very popular book that Masons recommend reading titled "A Pilgrim Path", and long discussions about inner pilgrimages and being Pilgrims on search of the cosmic vision of truth. Seems like a big theme.
But then I was reminded of something I was taught in my RCIA class that I just never really accepted nor understood. It was the idea of the "Pilgrim" Church. I have heard many of my NO friends defend and identify themselves as Pilgrims in a Pilgrim Church more times that I care to recount. So, naturally I connected the two.
When I began my search for tradition, I first learned about the Church Militant, the Church Triumphant, and the Church Suffering. I had never heard these terms before. When I read portions of Lumen Gentium I noticed that these references are not there. They have been replaced with the pilgrim on a journey church and a church in glory. There is no reference at all to the Church Suffering, as if Purgatory does not exist.
I am really interested in understanding this more. It seems to me that Masons have completed permeated everything and most people just don't know what is going on. They are just blindly following along and never bother to question any of it.
Any thoughts.
Please pardon my stupidity.
:tinfoil: