Rizal the mason

Media

Part of The Cabletow

Title: Rizal the mason
Creator: Ofilada, Macario M.
Language: English
Source: The Cabletow Volume II (New Series No. 3) January 1960
Year: 1960
Rights
Fulltext: Many other relics are available for viewing in the Memorial such as the George Washington Memorial Hall at the front entrance, several priceless paintings, the Amphitheater, and the Shrine Room. Certainly the most in teresting place for the Master Mason, however, is thc Replica Room described above. Every Mason who has the op portunity to visit in the Washington, D.C. area should make every effort to visit this verv beautiful Temple. & Our country, our civilization, our race, is based on the belief that for all its weaknesses, there is still in man that divine spark that will make him reach upward for something higher and better than anything he has ever known. Clarence Darrow Beautiful young people are ac cidents of nature; beautiful old people create themselves. F. Scott Fitzgerald Rizal the Mason By MWB MACARIO M. OFILADA Grand Master Here is a voice you will recognize al though it comes from very long ago and very far away. The words stand out for their vigor, and the idea thev convey is verv familiar to vou, for he was a mason, same as each of vou, Bro. Jose Rizal. I quote: “....dear brethren: The modern mason works, and should keep on working. That masons of the free world engage in business and do charitable works, well and good! But they should not rest while the earth feeds a tyrant, while the night ga thers in its echoes thc plaints of the oppressed, while there arc slaves, while there are oppressors! And this work is perhaps the greatest that Masonry has ever imposed and thc only one worthy of its universal name." My brethren, I have been quoting from the speech of our illustrious bro ther. Jose Rizal. delivered in Spanish at a meeting of ‘Solidaridad" Lodge No. 3 in Madrid 76 years ago. That was 13 years before he was murdered by the Spaniards through the machina tions of Spanish priests. That vear was 1883. I want you to remember this because it has a most important bear ing on the forgery which his murder ers cooked up in their effort to destroy his character after they had destroyed his body. The vear was 1883, in Spain, that he pronounced those words—4 years be fore he finished the Noli in Berlin on February 22, 1887. That outburst at tlvit time and in that place was not an isolated act ol our Brother Rizal. but one expression of an ideal to which he dedicated and gave his life. That decision to dedicate his life to thc righting of wrong, thc correction of injustice and the freedom of his people from oppression, began in his tender years, when his voung mind was shocked bv the priests’ inhuman ity to mankind, crystallized bv the in 107 sensate murder of those saintly mar tyrs, Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, and forged to white heat by the accumulat ed abuses and insults heaped upon the hidio bv thc Spanish priests. Now, when Rizal pronounced those words, was he in anv disjxtsition to turn about and change his opinion that was wrought through the years of his youth? Certainly not! Rizal was not made of that kind of day. When he was writing his Noli, lone ly. hungry, sick and far away from home, was he then in a disposition to change his principles, his character, his purpose in life? A thousand times no. I le had gone that far and, if anything, his adamantine resolution was beyond all hope of reversal. But then he was exiled to Dapitan, and many and devious were the means whereby the priest tried to trap him. Father Pastells utterly failed. Father Sanchez kept on trying. As Rizal and Sanchez were both naturalists they were together discussing hotly, quite oltcn, the dogmas of the Church, and often, Rizal would say: “You do not convince me, Father; vou don't convince me. I am sorry.” /Xccording to Retana, Rizal, although he had not ceased to be a Catholic, never went to mass, although he did not attack the piety of the believers. One dav. the parish missionary, Fa ther Obach, asked him to contribute for the fiesta in honor of San Roque, and Rizal exclaimed: “But, Father, how could vou wish me to contribute to the maintenance of ?. rival? Thc day San Roque does everything, I am finished—as a phy sician, I'm ruined.” I ask you, would Rizal. in that frame of mind, retract and “abominate” Ma sonry? But that is not yet. When, after he had selflessly offered his services as physician to thc Spanish armed forces in Cuba, had gone as far as Suez, on ly to be arested and brought back to face a mock trial for his life on an or der forged bv a Colonel Olive because this Spanish gentleman failed to rob the Rizal farm of a brace of turkeys; when Rizal was ultimately sentenced to die for fictitious crimes trumped up by the Spanish priests, and Rizal knew this too well as shown bv his total resignation to his fate as embo died in his “Last Farewell,” was Rizal then in a disposition likely to abjure Masonry, the fraternity to which he then belonged, the ;brothcrh<x)d that stands for justice and liberty, and science, and virtue, and labor, and hu man dignity — was he likely to turn cihout face and embrace the religion professed bv, and in whose name, those who had for centuries been so cruel to his people; murdered their men and raped their women, stole their property, ruined their reputation and trampled upon their dignity as human beings? Brother Rizal was not an ordinary man. He was a genius of extraordina ry abilities, extraordinary courage, and an extraordinary will steeled bv extra ordinary circumstances. Not only was his people, but his family specially singled out bv his murderers to oppress, and now that he was resigned to the death as the crowning jewel of those religious murderers' perfidy, was nc likely to lose his sanity and ki>s the hand that was to assassinate him? He was pronounced normal bv a physician who examined him minutes before he was done to death. That great Mala yan was made of superior stuff, better than even any of his cunning, sadis108 THE CABLE TOW January, I960 tic oppressors. Rizal preferred death to dishonor, knew that by his death he would conquer, and his country would find ultimate deliverance. No, Rizal did not retract. So Rizal, the Mason, for his unre lenting effort to end oppression, was ultimately assassinated by the oppres sors, the same hypocrites who would pass themselves as Jesus’ apostle to carry on His Christian work to foster love among all men. Those priests were Christ’s enemies, of the same mold as those priests who crucified Him. But then, after Rizal had fallen from thc assassin’s hand, his assassins also fell and with them, their own once proud country to obscurity. They thought they had killed Rizal, but by murdering him, the poor immoral wretches only made Rizal immortal. What then? They tried to assassinate his honor, the integrity of his charac ter as a man and as a mason by attri buting to him a cowardly "retraction,” by making him appear to be a weak ling and an idiot through inference, as if he had embraced and kissed his mur derers, believing them to be his deli verers despite his fore knowledge of his murder at their very hands. So those masters of logic were tripped bv the illogic and jstupiditv so peculiar to cunning criminals. So much with the moral aspect of that fraud they call retraction. What of the forgery itself? It is known that a number of handwriting experts, some of them Rizalists, have pronounced the unhappy forgery to be genuine. I will grant them good faith, but not good judg ment. Thcv were simply deceived. For the clever forgery appears to be more genuine than the genuine thing itself. In a contest where the contest ants were to impersonate Charlie Chaplin, the real Chaplin himself, who participated incognito, placed last. In other words, as the others looked more like Chaplin than Chaplin him self, so a clever forgery may look more genuine than the genuine thing itself. But there is indeed no perfect crime. Consider this phrase that is attributed to Rizal in that over-clever forgery. It “. . . . in this religion I wish to live and die.” I underscore the word live. Live? Rizal knowing, as no other soul in the uni verse knew, that in a few hours he would be murdered; Rizal, who was by far more intelligent than any one of his assassins, knowing that shortly thev would assassinate him,—was he, Rizal, capable of that stupidity of saying. . . . “to live,” when he knew only too well that he was definitely doomed and that there was no other alternative but death for him? My friends, our brother, Jose Rizal, knew what he was saying when he said those opening words I quoted. Even now the counterpart of those hypo crites in priestly robes are trying to suppress the truth bv campaigning vi gorously and tirelessly to prevent the Filipino youth from reading Rizal’s works on their predecessors’ horrendous crimes against the Filipino people in thc name of religion, in the name of spiritual salvation, in the name of Christ. I warn vou, vou and I may live to see the day when a "retraction” will again nop up bearing the forged signature of -hat illustrious Mason-Martvr. the Most Worshipful Grand Master Jose Abad Santos. What do I propose in order to avoid the repetition of this outrage against RIZAL THE MASON 109 the character of great masons when they are dead? I propose that every mason must instill in the mind of his wife and everyone of his children his irrevocable will to live and die a ma son; that never would be tolerate vul ture, hyena, or jackal in sheep’s cloth ing or priestly robes to wait and pounce upon his corpse when he is A Aristotle was By LEONARD Our present confusion as to what education is all about and what it should be is not anything particularly new. Aristotle himself did not know exactly what it should be and could not arrive at anything definite. He was uncertain whether it should be directed to the cultivation of the in tellect or to thc development of the character. In his Politics, he wrote: "... there is no agreement as to what the young should learn, whether w’th a view to the production of goodness or the best life." Looking at education as it was, he found it in confusion for there was* “... no certainty whether education should be training in what is merely useful as the means of livelihood or in what tends to promote goodness or in disciplinary studies." It was Aristotle’s duty to synthetize and put all knowledge in order—and he had more complete command of the knowledge of his own day than any one who ever lived before or since. Jn a series of texts covering the whole field from natural history to ethics, he left a monument to order and system which continued to Bacon’s era. But education was too much for him and dead or dying. Finally, I propose that each mason make a testament incor porating these conditions as a part of his will. My brethren, in fond memory of brother Rizal, I, as your Grand Master, want to hear your opinion. I now ask you: Do my proposals meet with your approval? A A Confused Too WENZ, 32° KCCH he left it in confusion where it per sists today to haunt the architects of modem education. In present day America, there is hope that we may yet clear up the con fusion. Alfred North Whitehead once said: "...in conditions of modem life, the rule is absolute; thc race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed." In recent months, the American people have begun to re-leam the truth of Whitehead’s statement. For years the nation has taken trained intelligence for granted and even worse, shown contempt for it. It seemed to have an emotional distrust for the human mind whenever it functioned above the high school level. This anti-intellectualism discouraged many from entering the field of education, and persecuted and harrassed those already in it. That millions are now recognizing the mis take before it is too late is most for tunate. As someone has said, never in our history have we been in a better position to commit ourselves whole heartedly to the "pursuit of excellence" in every phase of our national life. —Reprinted from. THE NEW AGE, June 1959, p. 350. Used by permission. 110