Forth of July

In this day that commemorate the date of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, the Brethren that form the Triangle Luz do Oriente use this opportunity to salute the different Grand State Lodges of the USA to whom the Grand Regular Lodge of Portugal (Legal) has close and brotherly relations. The LdO salutes, also, our American Brethren at home or wherever they are and wish them a safe return home to their families and relatives. The Masonic Family is not a label, a motto or a slogan. It is something we learn to cherish, nourish and validate through our Masonic journey. In our hearts, an important place is reserved to the contribution American freemasons have given, through the years, to the Craft. It is an honour to remember the Declaration of Independence of the United States, its embeeded masonic message and those eleven masons that sign it.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.