"A tree is known by its fruits"
Media
Part of The Cabletow
- Title
- "A tree is known by its fruits"
- Creator
- Tirol, Victoriano
- Language
- English
- Source
- The Cabletow Volume III (New Series No. 4) April 1961
- Year
- 1961
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- “A Tree is known by its Fruits” WB VICTORIANO TIROL, PM Dagoltoy Lodge #84 Rt. Worshiped Deputy Gland Master, Most Worshipful Grand Sec retary, Very Worshipful Distric t De puty Grand Master, Worshipful Sirs, and Brethren: In the name of Dagohoy LodgeNo. 84 and in my own, 1 welcome you all. I hasten to add that I feel honored to be the keynote speaker of this convention. I shall not speak to you on the ideals and principles of Free Masonry which are all known to you. I shall not attempt to repeat here the glorious history of our venerablefraternity in its efforts to liberate mankind from fanaticism, bigotry and slavery. That too is lamihar to us all. The story of the triumph of the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity is practically the slorv of Free Masonry. The steady light that guided and linallv liberated man kind from darkness during the dark ages was the light furnished bv our fraternity. That too is a familiar f shall not recount here all over again the noble and glorious deeds of our great brothels which alfected or changed even the destinies of na tions; of such brothers as Jose Rizal, Washington, Marcelo IL del Pilar, Emilio Aguinaldo, Jose Abad Sanios. Manuel Roxas, Douglas McArthur and thousands of others. Their achievements belong to history. Rather, I shall repeat here bv wav of reminding mvself and mv fellow brothers of the quiet, simple truth uttered almost two thousands years ago by Jesus of Nazareth, “A lice is known by its fruits,” "By their fruits ye shall know them.” Free Masonry for ages has been known for its leading members and by the achievements of its pillars as they met the challenges of their limes. But again, I do not propose to speak of the spectacular or ol the unusual. I will rather limit myself to the ordinary, simple day to day acts of the ordinary Mason as he goes on liv ing his even tenor of life. As ordinary individual Masons, do we try to live up to the ideals and principles of Masonry-' We speak of brotherhood of men, do we regard those with whom we deaf in the spirit of a brother? How do we treat our servants, our workers or emplovees? Do we meet them on the level, or do we exploit them if we have the chance lor our own sel fish interests? In this respect, don’t we know of brother Masons who arcfar below standard and who seem to be a disgrace to the fraternity? Don’t we know of brother Masons who will go as far as to exploit another brother? We speak of charity, of love-. How do we treat our fellowmen, even our brethren? How far or near are we to the standard of Jesus Christ, "Thou shalt love thy neighbors as 111 thyself," or "Thou shall love one another as I love you?” Don’t we sometimes malign our fellow beings, or even speak ill of our brothers? We arc expected to help one anoth er, specially the worthy distressed, brother, but how often do we cause the distress of our brethren ourselves? We speak of the fatherhood of God and yet in our actions in every dav life, we often bear no resemblance to the heavenly father. We enjoin ourselves to square our actions, yet we sometimes behave as if our squares have no right angles. We arc taught to be sincere and to avoid hypocrisy, yet how many of our brothers hide their identities for purposes of convenience? We boast of walking upright in rectitude as by the plumb, yet in every clay life we often sec ourselves or our brethren very much bent, far from the upright, a disgrace to moral ity and decency. These inconsisten cies and many more, arc seen by many if not by all. for Masons arc as a "city set on a hill and can not be hid". These inconsistencies, these weak nesses, are stains to the honor and prestige of our fraternity. Do we wonder then that our enemies, and we have legions of them, take advan tage of our weaknesses and inconsis tencies which could have been avoid ed by being more sincere to our ob ligations as Masons? These enemies of ours distort our motives and there by destroy our effectiveness. Certainly, in times like this, when good, honest and sincere men are rare specimens, we as Masons need to tra vel by the plumb, act by the square and meet people on the level in our daily lives. In so doing we shall live real Masonic lives, bearing the bless ed fruits of brotherly love, relief and truth. In other words, all we need is to remind ourselves that as a tree is "known by its fruits" a Mason is known by his deeds. This Convention will bear fruit ful results if we who come here pause and meditate on the pure ideals and lofty principles of Free Masonry and live and act by them. If we do, we shall become real Masons in ideals, words and deeds. Now, as in the days ol Brother Rizal, every Mason is needed in day to day nation building and utdess we strive to be worthy to the challenges of the present as Brother Rizal and our other heroes were in their times, we shall have failed to be worthy of the expectations and drcams of our great martyred brothers who died that we may live. .3, A RIZAL DAY IN ILOCOS On Rizal Day, December 30, 1960, Vigan lodge No. 63, F. & A.M. sponsored a program honoring Dr. Jose Rizal at the new monument to Rizal in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. This was eery significant since Vigan never had a monument to Rizal before. Also significant was the coming of Junior Grand Warden Pedro Gimencz as main guest speaker. Though only a small crowd came, some important people were present. 'File Governor of Ilocos Sur. Godofrcdo Reyes, wel comed us and was so impressed that he spoke of wanting to become a Mason himself. DeMolay boys and others brought musical and folk dance numbers. HUBERT REYNOLDS Worshipful Master, Vigan Lodge No. 63. 112 THE CABLE TOW April, 1961