Dear reader in the appropriate form of salutation!
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” is the motto that stands out in our Temples, universal values that we share with the profane world, an area of common ideality in which the stones of the Temple of Humanity are formed, those worked in the light of the Freemasonry method and those worked in the light of the other Ways that, like ours, aim to perfect individuals: we are not the best men but we work to be better men, and we are the keepers of the “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” motto, not the sole owners, our duty is to work so that one day it will be a common practice of all humanity.
We live in a time of crisis, a historic and global one, and in this time we all suffered a decline of Liberty and we all sacrificed, on the altar of the common good, shreds of it; and in this time, although equal before the virus (because it is absolutely indifferent to us and to our destinies), people didn’t and don’t have the same opportunities for care and assistance (and every crisis exacerbates inequality).
Like every crisis, this one too, as deep as it is because it is worldwide, will give us back a different world: will it be a better one? Or will it be worse? It may be one or the other, or one of the many possible between the one and the other, each one accessible through a different doorway, and that world will depend on which door we will get through.
It is a time of crisis, indelibly engraved in our daily life, carved in the memories of us all; but krisis means “choice”, the seed of hope that, if we want, will guide us to the narrowest door, the one that, almost invisible among the others, opens offering us the chance of a better world, free from rational, emotional, economic, social and political superstructures, and therefore fundamental!
As fundamental is Life, the Life of every Man, and everything else is a filler: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. All the rest is commentary. And now go study” (Hillel the Elder), because we still have so much to learn…
This crisis will therefore give us back a better world if we will be able to choose the narrow door of Solidarity, the door that many people have already crossed in this time, not heroes but men among men, and therefore even braver.
Solidarity among individuals, Solidarity among social groups, Solidarity among Peoples, to be men among men: “I have taken joy into my heart since I became a man. I abide in joy at eventide and song at daybreak” (Moses Mendelssohn).
Let us meditate, of course, but let us also operate, mind and heart, right thought and right action, for if reason does speak, indifference and selfishness and deception and fanaticism do act: let us roll up our sleeves, Brothers, keep on doing it and with our convictions, as Men trained in the method of Freemasonry, and together with the Men who follow other Ways of perfection, let us work so that, if the XIX century has been the Century of Liberty and the XX century the one Equality, may this century be the one of Fraternity.
And we will be individuals no longer alone, if we will know how to be, all and among all, Men freely equal, equally brothers, fraternally free.
And no one will be left behind, if we will know how to make each one recognize in the other a Man, fraternally equal, equally free, and also, if he will want so and if so it is written, freely Brother.
Take care of all of you and of your dearest ones. Take care of everyone.
So said I…
Antonio Cuomo
Grandmaster
National Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Italy 1805
