In Freemasonry Today issue 34 of autumn 2005, we talked about how different people can live together in harmony. In the pages of this magazine, we have often focused on the part harmony plays, at different levels. We have published speculative articles from numerous writers emphasising the part played by harmony in our proper conduct of masonic life and principles. Perhaps more importantly, we have brought to the attention of our readers concrete examples of how harmony works at the top level, so to speak, namely in society and in everyday life.
    We published an interview with David Webb, whose life has been virtually defined by his work with ethnic groups in Handsworth, groups who did not always see eye to eye. We interviewed Sir Andy Chande, latest recipient of the Grand Master’s award of the Order of Service to Masonry, who, as District Grand Master for East Africa, was in a unique position to demonstrate how Freemasonry binds, in a healing way, Brethren of diverse ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. And of course we had the shining example of the Freemasonry in the Community Week, when Freemasons countrywide demonstrated their commitment to the community at large, and by doing so united not only themselves in the endeavour, but also brought together those communities which they addressed.
    The reverse side of this coin of course is discord, and in the last issue we talked about the need to celebrate what we have in common, rather than focussing on our differences. We were even so bold as to suggest that Freemasonry had it in its power to make the entire community stronger, the world community. In this of course we have to start at home and work outwards. But we may face some strange adversaries, namely those who, taken at face value, ought to be on our side in the diffusion of light and harmony.
    In this issue, we have two extreme examples of how Freemasonry, sometimes involuntarily, finds itself either being approved or disapproved by any given religious, ideological or philosophical system. In the following pages we report that the Grand Master of the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy has taken a step which is almost certainly historic, by appointing a Roman Catholic Priest to the position of Grand Chaplain of his Grand Lodge. This is of course very good news for both Freemasons and Catholics, but in celebrating it, we should not forget the courage which must have been necessary, on the part of the Grand Master as well as that of the new Grand Chaplain, in taking this ground-breaking step. By it, a proper and meaningful dialogue has been opened up between regular Freemasonry and the Catholic Church in Italy, which we can only salute, and wish the endeavour the best for the future.
    But we also report on the slur cast on Freemasonry by the Bishop of Rochester. Such a standpoint runs so counter to the spirit of harmony and wider understanding, that we are at a loss to understand it. Tens of thousands of Christian Freemasons will not understand such a view, and our task, our vocation, is to spread light and harmony. Let us hope this runs even as far as forgiving our apparent adversaries.
    There is a particularly nice reference to harmony in the first lecture. When asked to define the quality of virtue, the aspirant replies that, in ancient Rome, the Consul Marcellus intended to erect a Temple to be dedicated to virtue and honour, but was prevented from doing so, and instead erected two Temples, contiguous to each other, but so situated that the only avenue to the Temple of Honour was through that of Virtue. That left a particularly elegant moral to posterity we are told, that virtue is the only direct road to honour. Virtue, the lecture continues:

... is the highest exercise of, and improvement to, reason; the integrity, harmony and just balance of affection; the health, strength and beauty of the soul ...

So harmony has a special place in what we do. It could even be asserted that harmony is the heart of what we do, for without it, all our charitable acts, our researches into selfknowledge and our grand design of being happy and communicating happiness will not be possible.
    Julian Rees



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