APRIL 2, 2020
Everything in life has a cycle, a beginning, a middle and an end.
All things, adverse or pleasant circumstances, are transitory. Nothing is definitive.
Humanity faces an unprecedented challenge.
It wasn’t a war, a meteorite, an extra-terrest invasion or a terrorist act.
It is a virus of microscopic dimensions that attacks a giant, who turns out that he is not even demi-god.
We find that after all, we are all the same, all brothers, that we are connected and that we depend on each other.
After all we come to the conclusion that there is only one race. The Human Race.
Unfortunately, this learning is being done for Pain, but we can only overcome it by Love.
We are making the journey through Cape Bojador and we have not yet reached the Cape of Storms, which will be coming soon. But history will repeat itself and the Cape will become Hope.
It is in these moments of darkness that men will reveal themselves.
You will see the worst and the best of the human being. But it is on the darkest nights that the stars shine brighter. Let us remember that the Shadow is only the Light that cannot be seen.
These are times of change.
After the catastrophe that was World War II, humanity was able to adapt and several institutions ( many of them Masonic-based ) were created that have sustained our societies to this day.
This is how the United Nations, an organization created to promote international cooperation, appeared. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also emerged with the initial objective of
reconstruction of the international monetary system in the post-World War period. Other organizations emerged after World War II as the World Trade Organization to oversee and liberalize international trade, the World Health Organization, UNESCO and after the successive financial crises of the 1990s, the G20 was created.
All these organizations were answers to the past moment. It’s past its expiration date.
With the challenges that await us, a new society will certainly be refounded.
Freemasonry is also a reality of the present time and therefore what we seek is in the Future not in the Past!
This War has 3 battles: Biological, Social and Economic!
All of them can provoke a certain sense of fear. Fear can be our ally, as long as it doesn’t stop us. But be note that Fear may also be the most contagious of diseases.
Fear is an emotional reaction: what we do with it is a rational choice.
Our society is at a crossroads, where it seems that the choice is binary. Between work and getting sick. Between letting people die or killing the economy.
The answer to this question is related to the society we want in the future.
Even for the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics, Paul Romer, the answer is clear : “Whoever is dead does not work. And for the economic recovery ahead, we need all the help we can get. The sooner the pandemic is detonator, the sooner we get back to work.”
There is no doubt that those who are on their deathbed exchanged all the luxuries to survive and can face an unprecedented economic crisis such as the one that comes. We’re already technically in recession, but you can still avoid a depression.
A global problem will need a global solution. Strangers from the past will be the neighbors of the future.
We have to be optimistic because much of the solution will pass through us.
But it is in these moments of uncertainty, when it is very difficult to think of the Future, that we must cast the “anchor of Masonic values”.
Let’s keep an eye out. The real danger of this dangerous threat is not only sanitary or of any other nature. It lies rather in the tenuous frontier that puts us between an exit to a future that fits our values of a just society or in the slippage for the exacerbation of any model of a muscular democracy that hides a totalitarian or dictatorial purpose, exploiting the two greatest human weaknesses: fear and ignorance.
There were generations before us who took on their responsibilities. The lifting of the Fatherland, the guarantor of our Independence, the gesta of the Discoveries, the recovery of the Earthquake, World War I, Overseas War, Freedom and so many other challenges. It’s our turn now.
The time is when we want.
The Hour . . . is now !!!
We are in a transition period and we must prepare. Obstacles can help bring people together.
Let’s focus our energy on the goals of life and never on the problems and difficulties that arise in our path.
We are beings in continuous evolution and we need to learn to adapt.
After the Storm we’re going to have a new world.
Perhaps we can discover the mystical uniqueness that is in all the things that happen and approach the essence of the Human Being and Nature, and in this process, Solidarity, Sharing and Fraternity will be our three pillars.
Let us not forget that we are spiritual beings living a material experience.
So let’s pray as if everything depended on GADU and act as if everything depended on us.
That is why this communication is not a resignation but a “Call to Action. “Having problems in life is inevitable. Being defeated by them is optional.
We all have different activities. Some with more and others with less responsibilities. Some work for employers, others are entrepreneurs.
Some will be more and others less affected.
Some of us will have family members or acquaintances who will be infected by this epidemic.
In this time of uncertainty I have no answers. Just ask. But I do, however, to tell you something.
No one can promise you that everything will be fine. I’m not sure that in my next communication I’m going to find you all right. But in this time of change we either unite as an Egrégora or we will fall individually.
This is a challenge we share with humanity.
Whatever happens, I want to assure you that the SOVEREIGN, who is all of us, is firm in the purpose of leaving no Store behind, of leaving no Brother alone, we will all walk together.
We’re going to have to reinvent ourselves. From Learning to dance in the rain. To perform the mystical union of the 2 Gnostic extremes. The fusion of the material and the spiritual.
But isn’t that the Mason’s plan? Learn, reconnect with your divine essence?
We will have to rebuild our inner and outer Temple.
Because as the Latin-based start-up key, “Adhuc Stat”, the capital of the column will fall, but the base is solid and can be reconstructed.
Let’s hope, but let’s not wait for someone to come and save us.
When the fog clears, we’re going to have a surprise.
It’s just that D. Sebastião is us after all.
We are the people we’ve been waiting for.
The 5th Empire is the collective fulfillment of the gold of philosophers (of philosophism), centered on the Covert, because it is, in the Portuguese hermetic conception the exact symbolization of the Philosopher’s Stone.
May in each of us shine that lightning, divine spark, that takes us from the vile night toward the New Day.
As on the day of initiation, let us look in our hearts for the reason that illuminates life that is worth living.
At this moment that will be for history and will be included in the school compendiums, let us be true Masons. The best version of ourselves.
With the help of the Great Architect of the Universe, we’re going to make it.
COVID-19 will pass. And we’re going to keep going!
This is a farewell in the present launched for the future.
Jack Frates
Glory of the Great Architect of the Universe. The Good of Portugal.
The Good of Humanity.
João Pestana Dias
Grand Master of the Grand Sovereign Lodge of Portugal
Lisbon, 01 April 6020