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Issue No. 11 July 14, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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R:.W:. Joseph R. Leo R:.W:. David L. Blasch V:.W:. John W. Cola V:.W:. Scott A. Klein Lodges of the Athelstane Cornerstone Goshen Hoffman Hudson River Jerusalem Temple Naurashank Port Jervis Stony Point-Wawayanda Wallkill Warwick West Point |
Summer is upon us and while many are taking a well-earned rest from their labors in the quarries of Masonry, many others continue to toil, especially our hard-working Masters and Wardens who continue to meet and prepare their trestleboards for what looks to be a great term! Communication continues to approve, our Lodges are working more closely together, and the fellowship and good spirit is palpable. Last Saturday, July 8th, Goshen, Cornerstone, and Warwick Lodges pooled their considerable talents and conferred the Master Mason Degree on four Brothers in Goshen. It was a pleasure to see these three Lodges laboring at the many rehearsals and taking a true pride in the presentation and quality of our beloved ritual. Congratulations on an excellent Degree! On Saturday July 15th, Jerusalem Temple Lodge will hold a Coffeehouse to help raise funds for the Brothers from Hudson River Lodge who recently lost their homes and all of their possessions in the recent flooding. Though they need funds to assist in the maintenance of their building, the Brothers of the Lodge thought nothing of donating half the proceeds to Brothers from another Lodge in distress, Charity being one of the great obligations of Freemasonry. Similarly, several other Lodges and individual Brothers have already made contributions to assist these Brothers. I hope to see as many people as possible in attendance on Saturday to support this worthy cause; details appear below in this issue. Please read the note below about the work of the District Staff and the need for liaisons from every Lodge. Please don't wait to be asked, call your Worshipful Master and volunteer today! Things are otherwise going well, and I hope you all have an awesome week. See you on Saturday! Brothers in Distress & Coffeehouse Fundraiser
at Jerusalem Temple Lodge
This week, we continue our appeal to the Brothers of the Orange-Rockland District on behalf of Brother Bruce Hess and his father, Brother Walter Hess, both members of Hudson River Lodge, who lost everything in their mobile homes due to the floods in Kirkwood, NY. Walter Hess is 75 years old and has 35 years as a member of the Craft and Bruce Hess is 52 years old and has 29 years as a member of the Craft. Several Lodges have already contributed to their relief and others are making plans to do so. Jerusalem Temple Lodge will hold a Coffeehouse on Saturday July 15th and will donate half the profits to these Brothers in Distress (click here for details). There will be live music, coffee, snacks, and other beverages; the cost at the door is $10 per person and $15 per couple. Any contributions you may wish to give will also be forwarded to them. Please send all donations to: Hudson River Lodge #309 DISTRICT NEWS
District Committees Forming Each Lodge is asked to appoint a Brother as a liaison to the District
in the following areas: 225th Anniversary, Awards, Brotherhood Fund,
Communications, Community Service, Fellowship & Family Involvement,
and Youth. It is also my pleasure to announce that R:.W:. George D.
Blasch will be traveling with us to provide information about our
Masonic Care Community, and will once more act as our District admissions
liaison should any Brother require need of their services. If you
have an interest in any of these areas, please contact your Worshipful
master and let him know! Brotherhood Fund Meeting ORDMA Web Site Updated Masters and Wardens Meeting An Invitation to the Masters of Lodges (Updated) The Masters of the Orange-Rockland District and their Ladies are cordially invited to meet our Grand Master and members of the Grand Line on Saturday August 12th at noon. The event will be held in conjunction with a joint picnic being held by the First and Second Westchester-Putnam Districts at Osceola Beach in Jefferson Valley, NY. More details will follow shortly, but please mark your calendars now. We hope that all of the Masters of our District will make every effort to attend. Additionally, because of the expanded event venue, other Brothers of our District have been invited to join the festivities. Keep watching this space for details! New Grand Lodge Web Site Many of you have already subscribed to the NETNEWS mailing list. You can access the most current edition of the NETNEWS through the link on the main page of the new Grand Lodge web site (www.nymasons.org). If you bookmarked this page previously, you will need to do this again, linking to the new page. You can also encourage your friends to sign up for NETNEWS announcements on the same page. 2006 DDGM Visits The Masonic Compact DATES TO REMEMBER
HELP WANTED
Wallkill Lodge invites the Brethren of our District to join them in marching in the General Montgomery Day Parade in Montgomery, NY on September 9, 2006, and the Walden Day Parade in Walden, NY on September 16, 2006. For more information, please contact the Master, Wor. Robert Schroeder. Masonic Family Days are Coming SCHOOL OF INSTRUCTION
The Orange-Rockland School of Masonic Instruction has returned! The School will convene on the second Monday of each month, at locations around the District. Instruction will rotate on a monthly basis between Ritual, Grand Lodge educational programs, and seminars on topics like Leadership and Communication. Our next School will be held on Monday August 14th at Jerusalem Temple Lodge at 8:00 p.m. The work on the trestleboard will be Balloting, DDGM Visits, and Basic Lodge Protocol followed by a social hour with cards and refreshments. A brief Masters and Wardens meeting will precede the School at 7:00 p.m. If you have any questions, please contact the DDGM. We'll see you there! SICKNESS AND DISTRESS
Cynthia Bleiwas, the wife of Bro. Howard Bleiwas of Athelstane Lodge and Past Treasurer of ORDMA, will be going in for gall bladder surgery on Friday morning, with Brother George Liberis as the surgeon. It is expected to be a routine procedure. We ask that you to keep her in your thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery. On Charity
Colonel Edward M L. Ehlers, a soldier
of the Civil War in which he was severely wounded, was subsequently
and at his death the Grand Secretary of New York. In his Encyclopedia
of Freemasonry, in his definition of Charity, author Albert C. Mackey
offers the following address by R:.W:. Brother Ehlers.
My Brother: With this right hand I welcome you to the fellowship of our Lodge and to the ranks of our ancient and honorable Fraternity whose cornerstone is Charity. Charity is the brightest jewel in the Masonic crown. Charity is the Corinthian pillar whose entablature adds strength, beauty and grace to the Masonic fabric. Charity is the radiant spark emanating from God, the inexhaustible source of love. If we attempt to eulogize its charms, the cooler powers of the mind melt into ecstasy, the heart is at empire, and every discordant passion bows before its lenient sovereignty. Not the Charity circumscribed by the narrow limits of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, binding up the wounds of the afflicted, but that broader nobler Charity that regards all men as Brothers. The Charity that is swift of foot, ready of hand, in the cause of a common humanity. The Charity that writes a Brother's vices in water and his virtues in enduring brass. The Charity of which He who spake as never man spake was the illustrious exemplar. Let this, the Mason's Charity, burn upon the altar of your heart a living fire. This Charity whose superstructure is friendship, morality, brotherly love; whose capstone is holiness to the Lord. Liturgies and creeds, articles of faith and rules of discipline, stain the rubric pages of history, and speculative points of doctrine have occasioned more misery in the world than all the crimes for which nations have been punished and recalled to their duty. We arraign no man's political opinions, nor do we interfere with his religious creed. To himself and his country we leave the one, and to his conscience and his God we commit the other. To the altar of Masonry, all men bring their votive offerings. Around it all men, whether they have received their teachings from Confucius, Moses, Zoroaster, Mahomet, or the Founder of the Christian religion; if they believe in the universality of the Fatherhood of God and of the universality of the brotherhood of man, here meet on a common level. The rich man, the poor man, the sovereign, the subject, are lost in the common Brother. The Christian returns to his Temple, the Jew to his Synagogue, the Mohammedan to his Mosque, each better prepared to perform the duties of life by the association of this universal brotherhood. It is to this Institution, born of heaven in the gray of the world's morning, before poets sang or historians wrote, that I am privileged to accord you a Craftsman's greeting. And I charge you, by the noblest instincts of your manhood, by all that you are and revere, by the ties that bind you to earth, by your hope of heaven, so to live and so to act that your Masonic life may be an open book known and read of all men. Finally, my Brother, I do assure you that whatever good you do is but duty done. If a sorrow you have lightened or a tear wiped away, if of poverty's load you have taken a share from some weary burdened soul, if you have lifted a cup of cold water to the lips of a famishing mortal, then to far have you illustrated the divine teachings of Masonry, then in so far have you done as the Master commanded. May He, without whose knowledge not even a sparrow falls, bless
your fellowship in our Lodge, and to His great name shall be all the
praise. FUN STUFF
Enjoy this Masonic cryptogram. Each number represents a letter. The result is a well-known Masonic phrase. Enjoy!
Last week's puzzle:The question is not what a man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate. Copyright 2006 Orange-Rockland District, GLNY F&AM. All rights reserved. |
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