Protected: Funeral Ceremony of Eugeen Liven d’Abelardo

Picture a small group of men gathered in a dimly lit room. One of them reads aloud from a yellowed book, written in the sixteenth-century French of Michel de Montaigne. The passage explores the strange power of custom — how entire peoples cling to habits they never consciously chose. The others listen, nod, and recognize in those centuries-old words something that speaks directly to their own pursuit: the search for truth, connection, and inner growth that lies at the heart of Freemasonry. An Essay That Holds Up a Mirror In the forty-ninth essay of the first book of his Essays, Michel de Montaigne takes on a subject that seems simple at first glance: old customs. He describes how peoples across the world maintain the most diverse practices — from eating habits to greeting rituals — and how every community regards its own way of doing things as the only correct one. But beneath that seemingly light surface lies a far deeper question: why do we accept certain practices without ever questioning them? And what does that blind acceptance reveal about our willingness to truly reflect on who we are? It is precisely this question that connects Montaigne to the tradition […]

There is an act so commonplace that we barely notice it, yet it carries within it one of the deepest spiritual truths known to humanity: the moment when people come together to consult with one another. In the forty-second surah of the Quran, known as Ash-Shura — The Consultation — this seemingly simple practice is elevated to the status of a divine principle. For those willing to look, an extraordinary vision of human interconnectedness unfolds here, one that reveals striking parallels with the spiritual traditions of Freemasonry. The Round Table as Sacred Space Imagine a round table. Not an ordinary piece of furniture, but a place where voices converge, where the ego yields to collective listening. The forty-second surah describes how believers conduct their affairs through mutual consultation. This Arabic concept of deliberation — shura — not only gives the surah its name but forms its beating heart. It is not the table itself that matters, but what emerges there: a space where individual wisdom blends into something greater than any single mind could produce. In Freemasonry, we recognize this principle in the lodge, where brethren gather not to debate or persuade, but to build. The gavel wielded by the […]

What if everything you own — your status, your reputation, even your body — were to vanish tomorrow? Would anything of real value remain? Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor-philosopher who ruled nearly nineteen centuries ago, posed this question to himself again and again. In the sixth book of his Meditations, he arrives at an answer that is both radical and consoling: only virtue holds genuine worth. This insight resonates profoundly with Freemasonry, where the pursuit of moral perfection and the cultivation of inner qualities stand at the very center of practice. Both traditions converge on a fundamental conviction: who you are matters far more than what you have. The Paradox of the Powerful Philosopher Here we enter curious territory. Marcus Aurelius wielded virtually unlimited power. As emperor, he could amass wealth, destroy enemies, and have his name chiseled in marble for all eternity. Yet night after night, he wrote in his private journal that none of these things moved him. More than that — he regarded them as distractions from what truly matters. Throughout Book VI, he repeats like a mantra that external circumstances are neither good nor bad. They are indifferent, neutral, merely the raw material with which the […]