To be a Principal, you must have an indomitable disposition to relentlessly fight vice, corruption, crime, easy profit, and personal ambitions. May he always be found at the side of the sick and those abandoned by justice. May he respect others, regardless of colour, social position, creed or political persuasion. That he be respectful to, and preserve both nature and wildlife.
To be a Principal, he must be protective and supportive of the Companions, being a safe repository of their weaknesses, but exalting them for their peculiar virtues. He needs to be a lover of the customs and rituals, fighting dogmatism, intolerance, fanaticism, superstitions, Masonic errors and inventions.
To be a Principal, one does not need to have high status, but to erase vanities. May it be a bridge of union between the Chapters, the Companions and the Profane, may it never be a vehicle for discord. He may have been deceived, but he can never deceive himself. He must know how to forgive and know how to ask for forgiveness.
To be a Principal, one does not need to be financially well-off, but he cannot be spiritually poor. He needs to be pure in sentiment and follow the principles and ideals of Freemasonry in his everyday life. He should welcome and assist Visiting Companions and make them feel as at home in the Chapter as they would in their own.
To be a Principal, you do not value extravagance. You must prefer responsibility, over rank and fortune, that he carry out with abstinence and fidelity all the responsibilities of such a noble office. That at the end of his mandate he prefers to be the Outer Guard over Past Principal. He can be elected for the first time and if re-elected, not wanting to perpetuate in power.
To be a Principal, one must like to be called a Companion and really feel in your heart all the vibrations and fullness of what it means to be a true Companion.
To be a Principal, let him not live a prisoner of the legends and stories of Masonry of the past, rather than write the most beautiful folio of Masonry of the present.
To be a Principal, is one who embraces, who smiles, who cries or wipes our tears, so that we have the inevitable certainty that Masonry is really, the immaculate Jacob's Ladder, that elevates man from that Rough Ashlar to the presence of the universal cosmic mind.
