Silanganan Lodge No. 19

“Let no one ignorant of Geometry enter here,” says the sign in Plato’s Greek. Tools and implements of Architecture, most expressive, are selected by the Fraternity to imprint on the memory wise and serious truths; and thus, through a succession of ages, are transmitted unimpaired the most excellent tenets of our Institution.

A warm welcome was given to families and friends, on January 27 last month at the Scottish Rite Temple in Taft Avenue, on the occasion of our Installation of elected and appointed officers for the ensuing Masonic year.

This year’s major functionaries are Bro. Jose Jonathan Atienza, Worshipful Master; Bro. Ariel Merdegia, Senior Warden;  and Bro. Wilfredo Reyes, Junior Warden. VW Rey Banaag  PDGL was re-elected Secretary, while we have a new Treasurer in Bro. Jesus Gabriel Domingo. WB Aldo Esmena PM is the new Auditor, and VW Dante Balbas PDGL is the Harmony Officer. 

For this year’s ceremonies, the Lodge had invited VW Jose Ferlu Sudario PDGL, Installing Officer, VW Robert Liao PDDGM, as Master of Ceremonies, and VW Dante Balbas PDGL, Asst Master of Ceremonies. The occasion was attended by brethren from various lodges in the jurisdiction, and graced by the Guest of Honor and Speaker, VW Joselito Villarosa, PDDGM.

Lunch and fellowship followed at the Heroes’ Hall of the Scottish Rite Temple, A&ASR. The full text of the DDGM's message follows.

"In the calendar of events devised by the Grand Lodge, January is when the proficiency examinations of elected ‘lights’ are conducted and the installation rites of lodge officers take place. It is the logical period for the entry of new blood and the introduction of new thinking into the Brotherhood, and for the changing of the guards – the redistribution of the officers’ duties and responsibilities. 

"As we ring in the new and ring out the old, I am pleased to greet all of the just elected and appointed officers of the six lodges of District NCR-F on their installation, and I do wish them not only a happy and prosperous new year but also a most successful term in office, one that would justify the trust placed on them by their members and raise the Craft higher in the eyes of their respective communities. 

"And to their predecessors, particularly the Worshipful Masters with whom I have worked closely in the past, my sincerest thanks and appreciation for all that they did to enhance the District’s image and final worth to the entire organization. I would certainly miss the frequent productive meetings we used to hold, the skill with which they disposed of even the stickiest of problems, and the sheer pleasure of their company. No other group has been more helpful and cheerful in the conduct of official Masonic business. 

"Again, a Happy New Year to all. May the brethren of District NCR-F continue to spread brotherly love and thrive in unity and harmony."

By VW Benjamin "BJ" Torres, PAGS

Researcher/Compiler

Any interpretation must necessarily be a hint only, yet a hint may stimulate a man to reflect upon it for himself and to study it more thoroughly in the future. 

In the First and Second degrees (published in the last 2 issues –WEC), the candidate is surrounded by the symbols and emblems of architecture; while in the Third Degree the candidate finds a different order of symbolism, cast in the language of the soul – its life, its tragedy and its triumph. To recognize this is the first step in its interpretation. 

The second step is to recognize that the Third Degree has many meanings; it is not intended to be a lesson complete and finished, but rather a pointing out of paths, a new departure, a series of inspirations, an awakening of all the faculties, like a great drama, picture or symphony to which one may evermore return to find new meanings as in an inexhaustible fountain-head of truth. 

There are many interpretations of this Degree, all true. But most essentially it is a drama of the immortality of the soul, setting forth the truth that, while man withers away and perishes there is that in him which perishes not. 

That this is the meaning most generally accepted by the Craft is shown by our habits of language; we say that a man is initiated as Entered Apprentice, passed a Fellowcraft, and raised as a Master Mason; and by this it appears that it is the raising that most Masons find at the center of the Master Mason degree. 

The life of a man is organized in a number of groups of experience, each different from the others. Some experiences are incidental to your passage through time, from childhood to manhood, to old age. Some are incidental to the life of the body; hunger, weariness, sleep, the senses, the feelings. Others cluster about the home and the family; about religion, worship, God, the meaning and purpose of life. Yet others have to do with a man’s work, his trade or occupation, how he makes a living for himself and his dependents. Some center about his life in the community, as a social being, as a neighbor or a citizen. Unless one is adequate to deal with all these groups of experience, he cannot be happy. 

The most difficult of all to deal with is that made up of the evils of life; hard experiences, sin, defeat, suffering, diseases, pain, loss of friends or fortune, enmity, treachery, crime, wickedness, sorrow, death. Herein lies our greatest problem, our most trying ordeals, our severest trials. If we can have the wisdom to deal with these, if we can triumph over and solve these problems, our character will be secured, our happiness assured. 

What do you do about evil in yourself and in the world about you? This is a question life asks of each of us. If we fail to get the right answer to these questions, it enforces the worst of all penalties. 

Evil may be brought upon our own acts, or come through no responsibility of our own. If evil comes upon a man by his own acts, we feel that it is a just compensation; but what of the evil that comes upon a good man? Such we call a tragedy, the supreme evil. Evil in this form of a tragedy is set forth in the Drama of the Third Degree. Here is a good man, a builder, working for others and giving others work, the highest we knew, as it is dedicated wholly to God. Through no fault of his own, he experiences tragedy from friends and fellows. Here is evil pure and unalloyed, a complete picture of human tragedy. 

How did the Craft meet this tragedy? The first step was to impose the supreme penalty on those who had possessed the will to destroy and therefore had to be destroyed lest more tragedy follows. The greatest enemy man has, makes war upon the good; to it no quarter can be given. 

The next step is to recover from the wreckage caused by the tragedy whatever of value it has left undestroyed. Confusion had come upon the Craft; order is restored. Loyal craftsmen take up the burden dropped by the traitors. It is in the nature of such tragedy that the good suffer for the evil, and it is one of the prime duties of life that a man shall toil to undo the harm wrought by sin and crime, else in time the world would be destroyed by the evils that are done within it. 

But what of the victim of the tragedy? Here is the most profound and difficult lesson of the drama, difficult to understand, difficult to believe if one has not been truly initiated into the realities of the spiritual life. Because the victim was a good man, his goodness rooted in an unvarying faith in God, that which destroyed him in one sense could not destroy him in another. The spirit in him rose above the reach of evil, by virtue of it he is raised from a dead level to a living perpendicular. 

Let us imagine a genuinely good man who has seen the victim of the most terrible of tragedies, one caused by treachery of friends. This treachery has brought destruction upon the foundation of his life, his home, his reputation, his ability to earn a livelihood. How can he be raised above the clutch of some circumstances? Or be a happier man than before? By his spirit rising to the level of forgiveness, or resignation, of self-sacrifice, refusing to stoop to retaliation or to harbor bitterness. In such a spirit the truest happiness is found.

The secret of such power is in the Third Degree, symbolized by the Word. If that Word is lost a man must search for it; if a man possesses that Word he has the secret of the Masonic Art; to rise to the height of spiritual life is to stand on a level above the reach of tragedy or the powers of evil. To have the spirit rest in God, to have a sincere and unvarying faith in truth and goodness, is the inner secret of a Master Mason, to teach which is the purpose of the Third Degree.