The Masonic Passport program is a great way to keep track of every lodge to which you travel. It allows you to collect lodge seals from each lodge you visit. The program was created in 2011 after RWB Michael Dodge witnessed a similar program implemented by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. The passport is designed to help promote traveling by encouraging brothers to visit a certain number of lodges, and earn a cool lapel pin that only fellow Masonic travelers of Connecticut can wear. The passport looks very much like a regular travel passport and can be purchased from Grand Lodge for $20. It does not cost the Grand Lodge twenty dollars to create the passports and administer the program, so the extra money collected is donated to the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory to fund their research in finding cures for heart disease.
For brethren who may not know how the program works, it is simple. Ask the secretary of your lodge for a passport. The secretary will order it from Grand Lodge. Depending on your lodge you will either pay the secretary up front or when it arrives. When you receive it, fill in your personal information on the inside of the front cover and have your secretary emboss it with the seal in the first quadrant. The first quadrant is for the seal of your Mother Lodge. Notify your district deputy that you will be traveling and filling up your new passport. Then go visit lodges.. At each lodge have the secretary emboss the passport with that lodges seal, and have the Worshipful Master and Secretary both sign it.
After visiting three, five and seven lodges, the District Deputy will present you certificates to be pasted into the appropriate pages in the passport. After visiting nine lodges you are eligible to receive the Traveling Man lapel pin.
The program is not limited to lodges in Connecticut. Many states have similar programs to help promote traveling in their jurisdictions. States who may not have a similar program will still be willing to stamp your passport, and you mat actually them to start their own program.
I started my first passport the year I was made a Master Mason and I found great enjoyment in collecting the seals from surrounding lodges as well as the fraternal union I gained from traveling. If you are not currently traveling and filling up a Masonic Passport you should start now. It is enjoyable and rewarding and it also helps a great charitable organization. Reach out to your secretary or Grand Lodge and take the first step by purchasing your own Masonic Passport today.
