Oration to the Lodge given by W Bro Frank A Chappell, Provincial Grand Chaplain

Right Worshipful Provincial Grand Master, Worshipful Master, Brethren!  May I add my congratulations to the members of Victoria Lodge 2669 on the occasion of this Centenary; one hundred years in which the Lodge has known many good times - and also shown great fortitude in persevering when the future may have been uncertain and not very bright.

Today is Michaelmas - the feast of St Michael and All Angels - a most suitable day to celebrate with joy a great achievement.  It is also the season of the year when the Harvest is being gathered in and celebrated and we can ask ourselves what kind of harvest there is to show from the past 100 years of this Lodge's existence.

Six years ago I moved to a country parish and found four fruit trees in the Vicarage garden.  Each Summer three of the trees have produced bumper crops of apples, but the fourth tree produced absolutely nothing so that I resolved to chop it down.  Even after four years there was not an apple to be seen on it, but, to our great joy on that fourth Summer it produced plums - not just one, but hundreds.  And indeed it has done so ever since.

(I am tempted at this point to tell you a lie!  It is not an easy thing for a Provincial Grand Chaplain to do!  I would dearly have liked to tell the members of this Lodge that they were Victoria plums.  Alas!  They are not!)  But I remind the Lodge members that they share an illustrious name - Victoria - with a most delicious fruit; and indeed, I shall go on to remind you that the title "Victoria" is one that is associated with countless institutions and place names.

So what of the Victoria plum?  Full of rich goodness, taste and life.  This recalls the command in the V.S.L. that all of us are called to bear fruit - fruit that will last; and also to share with others what we so richly enjoy.  The mature plum tree - the Victoria - laden with fruit.  And just a few moments ago this very afternoon you have as it were, now made that fruit freely available to others when you made your charitable donation.

Victoria gave her name not only to a plum but also to one of the great marvels of the world - the great Victoria Falls in central Africa.  What an amazing spectacle it must be - all that power - all that potential for good - all that water cascading over the cliffs of rock.  We know that even a tiny trickle of water over a long period of time can leave its mark.  In the great caves of the Yorkshire Dales, just a few miles from here are those fascinating stalagmites and stalactites formed over may years (hundreds of years) by the interaction of water on solid rock.  And over the past 100 years each of those strange rock formations will have changed and developed.  And we can reflect that over the past 100 years many lives will have been touched and influenced by the workings of this Lodge.  Like the power of water affecting the rock formations on the Zambesi River at Victoria Falls, this Lodge will have changed many people's lives for the better - helped to smooth away the rough edges of life, helped to build them up and sustain them.  The spray from the Victoria Falls often produces glorious rainbows which, like Freemasonry, lift the spirits, gladden the heart and enrich our lives.

But let us leave central Africa and move even further around the globe - to down-under - to the state of Victoria - to Australia.  Brethren you share your name with a great Australian state.  The name Victoria spans the world you might say.  And as we celebrate this Centenary here in Bradford, Yorkshire we do so when the sun, in Masonic terms will also be at its meridian with respect to Freemasonry in Victoria, Australia.  "Victoria" reminds us that our craft knows no barrier - that our ideals of Brotherly live, relief and truth embrace the whole World.  We share with King Solomon's father, David, the conviction "O Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the Earth".

We rejoice that Victoria Lodge reflects that truth and that brethren from so many backgrounds and from so many different areas of the World have been able to find brotherly love and affection within these walls.  A "potted history" which has come my way tells of Brethren from Europe and Germany, from Uganda and Asia.  Still no mention, though, of anyone from Lancashire!

We could go on this kind of vein.  There is in our capital city, for example, the great railway terminal - Victoria Station, with its vast concourse where people meet, arrive, come and go.  And we could reflect that we are in the communication business - travelling, visiting, sharing.  Part of our ritual reminds us that we are in the business of "communicating happiness".  As Freemasons we need to make connections, to show that we are relevant to the modern world.  That as we have had a role to play over the past 100 years, so we have a role to play in the hundred years that lie ahead of us.  One of our hopes is that your Lodge will keep its sense of direction and enable people to arrive and to meet each other.

Above all other things though, this Lodge shares the name of the great Queen, Victoria.  It was in her Diamond Jubilee year - the sixtieth of her reign that you were formed.  And if we consider her life I suggest that two great qualities are to be seen, Loyalty and Commitment!

This Centenary celebration is an opportunity to pledge again our loyalty to the craft, to its values, to its concerns and to commit ourselves to its future.  To take the name of one of your daughter Lodges today is an occasion to express our Faith!  Thanksgiving for the past!  Yes!  and Faith in the future.

Throughout her long life, Queen Victoria know many challenges and faced many setbacks; she came to the throne an inexperienced teenager and yet by the end of life she had made a tremendous impact on Society here and in many places overseas.  May this Lodge, named in her honour, continue to influence people's lives.

May the God of our Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac the God of Jacob, the Angel of everlasting covenant who hath redeemed us from evil.  The Holy one who sanctifieth us, bless, protect and keep you now and for evermore.