May 15, 2012

My Brothers:
Among my goals as your new Grand Master is to promote our three great tenets:  Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. Number one is Brotherly Love.  We need to “like” each other.  The attitude that we need to exhibit is the willingness to support each other and our families.  Whether we are in the Lodge room or out in society, we should be happy to be with each other.  As the 133rd Psalm states:

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

In each of our degrees we are taught the tenet of Charity.  The Brotherhood Fund is our Masonic Charity.  This year there will be an increased emphasis on the Brotherhood Fund and Charity.  Our Brotherhood Foundation is looking at what we need to do to improve this endeavor.  At next year’s annual communication I will tell you how we spent the donations given to the Grand Master’s allocation.  The Brotherhood Fund needs to be transparent.  Thank you, in advance, for your continued support to this Fund.  Lodges are encouraged to continue their support of local charities.

Integrity is an important characteristic of a Master Mason.  We must be truthful and honest in everything we do.  We must be genuine in all our relationships with each other and mankind.  We must say what we mean and mean what we say.  If we see a brother going down a wrong path we must step up and warn him of approaching dangers.

We must not “measure our importance by our titles or our monies,
But by the texture of our character and the cleanliness of our speech.”

Finally, brethren, I am excited about being your Grand Master.  I thank you for this opportunity that you have given me to serve you and our craft.  I will continue to do all within my power to take this thing we call Freemasonry and bring it one step further to perfection.  With your help, together we can see our great Fraternity grow and prosper.

Fraternally,

M:. W:. James E. Sullivan

Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York

May 10, 2012

To my Brother Masons, Family and Friends:

I want to thank you again for the high honor you have given me by your vote to elect me to serve as your Grand Master. When one reflects on the really outstanding men and patriots who have occupied the Grand East in this jurisdiction since 1781, I have to be humbled by your confidence. As I said in the Grand Master's address the other day, which will be disseminated shortly, we look forward with great enthusiasm to the friendship and Brotherly love we will nurture and share in the year ahead, and I renew my promise to promote all of the positive values we pledged to observe when we knelt at the alter and took our obligations as a Mason upon the Holy Bible.

And as one of my first messages to you since my Installation, it gives me great personal pleasure to note that this weekend we celebrate Mother's Day.  Of course, we celebrate more than just our Birth Mothers, if we are lucky to still have her with us, but of equal significance, we have the opportunity to celebrate all of the women in our lives.

Mother's Day is a day that really gives us just another good reason to pay homage to the woman we love and cherish as our closest friend and companion. I have been blessed to have Gail as my life partner and together we have children who are now parents and we cherish them and their children as our dividends...as I am sure that you do with your family.

So to all of you in our extended Masonic family ... to the women in our lives ... we hail and salute you on this, your very special day. On behalf of Gail and myself, and R:.W:. Bill Thomas and Susan, and our entire elected and appointed Grand Line, Happy Mother's Day. We pray that you and your family will enjoy a safe holiday and we ask you to please remember the men and women in our armed forces who are serving our Nation away from their family on this special day. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

With all good wishes, sincerely and fraternally,

M:. W:. James E. Sullivan

Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York

April 2, 2012

My Brothers …

While it has been truly said that, "time flies when you are having fun;" the calendar has a way of creeping up on us. More than that, we find that days and weeks and months go by like the blink of an eye. Here I am almost at the end of what has to have been one of the most exciting, busy, awe inspiring, fun-filled two years of my entire life, and I am writing one of my last messages to the craft on the eve of Easter and Passover … my last such Holiday Message to you as your Grand Master. And the theme has to be one of renewal.


The days have lengthened; the weather is surely getting warmer; the migrating birds are seen once again, and the spring flowers and trees are already in bloom. This is the season of rebirth in Nature, and we plan for a rebirth in Masonry in our beloved New York Grand Lodge. Today then, in the spirit of rebirth and hope and renewal, we pause to give thanks to our Creator for all of the wonders and joys of life itself, as the Judeo-Christian calendars signal the start Passover and Easter at the end of this week.


It is in this spirit that Ginny and I and our family, as well as on behalf of Gail and Deputy Grand Master Jim Sullivan, our elected and appointed Grand Line and our extended Masonic family, wish you and yours a most joyous Easter and Passover holiday season.


It is our wish for you and our entire beloved fraternity, that your lives be blessed with good health and great accomplishments now, and in the days to come. May our successes these past few years be multiplied many times in the months and years ahead as our new leaders come to the Grand East and in your local Lodges. May Brotherly love prevail. May the Great Architect watch over all of us … especially our men and women in our Armed Forces. May God Bless them and keep them safe from harm until they return to their loved ones. May God Bless you and all those you cherish. May God continue to Bless our great fraternity, and our beloved United States of America. May we all enjoy peace, "Shalom!", now and forever more!

With my most sincere fraternal regards and best wishes,

M:. W:. Vincent Libone

Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York