ENTHRONEMENT OF NEW BRITISH GRAND MASTER

14th February 2010

On Sunday 14th February 2010 the retiring Grand Master, MW Bro Valerie Coles enthroned Deputy Grand Master RW Brother Nicholas Ferrari as her duly elected successor at the Royal National Hotel Temple Bedford Way London. The Grand Master is elected every three years and Nicholas Ferrari is the second man to be elected as Grand Master of the first Grand Lodge of Freemasonry for Men and Women. Nicholas Ferrari has been the supporting Deputy Grand Master in Great Britain since the founding of the new Order in 2001supporting the previous Grand Masters, as the last of the founding Grand Officers to take the chair, still working on various Company boards being still active and also busy with the Church.

It seems amazing that already ten years have passed since the founding of the Grand Lodge of Freemasonry for Men and Women in early 2001. Nicholas Ferrari as the new Grand Master and also a founder member has been an active Mason for 43 years and has wide experience of the different degrees of the Antient and Accepted Scottish Rite as well as many of the other Allied and speculative degrees worked. An able administrator and speaker, he has also lectured publicly on the ancient mysteries. Nicholas Ferrari is also one of the Founder Members of The Grand Conclave of the 33rd degree. We owe a debt of gratitude to Nicholas and the other founding members whose unstinting and continued efforts have helped and continue to make a strong foundation for our new Grand Lodge.

 

 

 

MW Bro Nicholas Ferrari the newly Enthroned Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Freemasonry for Men and Women

Congratulations and goodwill wishes for the future and the next three years were received from Masonic obedience's around the world. This very happy and auspicious occasion was also attended by many distinguished guests from other Masonic obedience's who came to help celebrate this important event and included below among others.

 

 

 

The newly Enthroned Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Freemasonry for Men and Women MW Bro Nicholas Ferrari Grand Master (on the left) MW Bro Jeanne Heaslewood Past Grand Master (centre left) Past Grand-Master MW Bro J. Michael Westcott (on the centre right) Past Grand Master - Past Grand Master MW Bro Valerie Coles (on the right). The newly Enthroned Grand Master, and the Past Grand Masters are all also among the FounderMembers of The Grand Conclave of the 33rd degree.

 

 

From left to right - RW Bro Roula Rogan- Assistant GM for Overseas (Territories), A MM from Romania, MW Bro Nicholas Ferrari Grand Master, Claudia Racovitan MM WM Elect for the first Romanian Lodge, and an EA from Romania

 

The newly enthroned Grand Master thanked the Installing Grand Master for this moving ceremony of Enthronement  and all the Grand Officers who took part and the  visiting brethren for coming to support us on this important occasion. Lastly he thanked all the brethren of the Order, our reason and purpose for being here. "Your support and engagement in the Masonic work is our reason for being here and in time there are many among you whom we hope will follow the same path."

"The Masters column is the Ionic, symbolically wisdom, more perhaps matronly than the male, strong Doric and the youthful and beautiful Corinthian columns and the Ionic possibly better defines the Master as physically representing the creators influence on earth. This was a deliberate choice of the ancients and so I hope I can faithfully represent that Wisdom aspect. When the founders, conceived the plan to create this Grand Lodge Order, we had no expectation of how it would develop, only a certainty that this was our given duty.

We were driven to continue the Work having become thwarted in our previous Jurisdiction and Offices defending our duty to work in the name of the TGAOTU an acknowledgement of the British Masonic constitutions implemented by Annie Besant in perpetuity, but also because of  all of our successive solemn obligations to TGAOTU.

I say this to emphasise that we now live in a world where the vast spiritual dimension of our existence is being suppressed or set aside around the world as it is not tangible, scientifically defensible and that freedom, equal rights and brotherhood is enough on its own. Perhaps it would be if we sought to be humanists only. There is a struggle between evolutionists and creationists, the former often atheist in mind, although remember that Darwin was a confessed Christian. Masonry was created to defend the very divine dimensionless vista of our development into fully conscious communion with the divine creator of the universe through morality, allegory, all illustrated by symbols to realise our true spiritual nature. Chop that aspect of human development off and we merely aim to be good people in our daily lives.

If the humanist atheist evolutionists have their way all our efforts and achievements end with our death at differing stages of development and achievement. If we admitted new members  with no belief in a supreme being, we would be in breech not only of our oaths, the ancient charges but also our absolute spiritual duty to those candidates for whom we take responsibility. We believe in evolution as life is an evolutionary cycle, the antient wisdom tells us that life is the great wheel starting and ending in the unity of god. We also know that this involves us all building on the work of those who have gone before just as we ourselves build on our own experience. Our world stands at a crossroads in a tug of war between selfish individualism and our common spiritual responsibility. There are those that say life is about us and we don’t have to consider others and yet we have reached where we are today only by standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before.

It is our duty to live our beliefs. What I hope to bring to build on the work of those who have preceded me, is a more focussed attention on our spiritual temple. Our awareness, if we allow it, embraces all mankind and indeed all the created Universe, Gods Temple in the macrocosm. We have devoted a great effort to creating Lodges, establishing our codes of conduct and our ceremonial rituals and owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those who have contributed to that effort. The Past Grand Masters MW Brn J Michael Westcott, Jeanne Heaslewood and Valerie Coles have not just led these tasks but have done the vast bulk of the work as well, ably supported by the Deputy and Assistant Grand Masters and the supporting Grand Officers as well as the General Purposes Committee. This work must not be wasted effort, so we cannot rest on our laurels. There are many who stand back when work is being done, setting up Lodges and breaking them down. If you are one of these brethren, involve yourself, for it is only by becoming a part of the work that you grow by experiencing practical masonry. The spiritual insights that masonry give us is based on the effort we put into it. No effort no pain– no gain.

You cannot afford to stand back and let others do things without you. This work is rather like a keeping a garden, make no effort and no order comes out of it, ideas wither, weeds creep in, growth is stunted, and the path through it becomes overgrown and lost. It is by becoming a working part of the Temple, that the whole works, each contributing something to the whole in different ways, for a complete edifice. This is paralleled in ourselves in proportion to the effort we put in however small. Life does not allow us to stand still for long. We have achieved much over the last 9 years, but our work is just begun in the greater scheme.

We have built foundations of a new Order and now have commenced work in all the key degrees worked, but it is still early days. We the founders come from the legacy of the old 19th & 20th Century Order and you need to use us while we are still here as the day will come when you all are the senior brethren bearing the lighted torch for the future. Most of us in the East have been Freemasons for over 40 years and can share with you our perception of the allegory and moral symbolism, which you can consider in your own reflections, but which will at least suggest lines of thought for you to dwell upon. I shall be trying to encourage you to see the hidden part of the proverbial iceberg, the allegorical but implicit spiritual teaching which is the soul of the Masonic tradition and which the light bearers have borne from ancient times. We must do our part to not just keep that flame alight but also become the lightbearers ourselves to others."