Cabletow 4th issue - GM Ebdane - Grand Lodge of the Philippines

The Cabletow
“Life is a deodand, but must come to an end, sometime, somewhere, to return
to God who gave it,” so spoke the ancients in the Craft.
As mortals, we dream of living for all infinity. But life that lasts forever is bereft
of all meaning. It is an abandoned shell that affects not the vast seashore of humanity.
It is a trumpet that sounds an uncertain note, influencing not a soul nor enriching
the lives of others. Life without death is like a stream devoid of direction, flowing
aimlessly among the rocks and pebbles, never meeting its fate with that Great
Ocean of Fulfillment.
Like all mortals, Justice Ricardo Galvez succumbed to the failings of ordinary
men. Because death is a thief in the night, and by stealing the hearts he has stilled,
he has left grief in the hearts of the family and the Masonic fraternity.
We have no cause to protest.
Our lamentations are silenced. Our throats are closed by the remembrance of
the Divine judgment which marks the dust as our origin and our destiny. Thus
humbled, we can only echo the injunction uttered in Gethsemane: “Thy will be
done!”
It is in vain that an inner voice, the bearer of sweet consolation like that of the
Angel who spoke to the woman on the dawn of resurrection, bids us now to weep
not for he is not dead. For life is a transition from this world of uncertainties and
fleeting pleasures to the lasting glories of a brighter and better land, the Land of
Immortality.
We have gathered here this afternoon to pay our last offices of respect to a
Brother Mason who in life ascended to the Grand Oriental Chair. He has brought
honor to Masonic District No. 20 in general and to Kalantiao Lodge No. 187 in
particular. In death he has now ascended to the pedestal of the reverend.
Justice Galvez is dead, but his premature passing away is the celebration of the
life he lived. He has fulfilled that which Oliver Wendell Holmes admonished us: “It
is required of a man that he should share the actions and passions of his time, at
the peril of being judged not to have lived.” A just and upright man of learning, he
Cabletow 22
Eulogy for a Departed Grand Master
MW RICARDO P. GALVEZ
(July 31, 1933 - November 2, 2005)
by JUDGE SEVERINO C. AGUILAR
(Retired Judge Aguilar, PDDGM, PSGIG, is a contemporary
of the departed PGM as lawyer and Freemason. In that
capacity, his eulogy was made on behalf of both the Craft and the Iloilo community
of lawyers.)