Upcoming Festivals and Holy Days
National Spiritual Assembly
27 February 2016
2 Ayyám-i-Há 172 B.E.
To all believers in the United Kingdom
Dearly loved Friends,
At this time of Ayyám-i-Há, the National Spiritual Assembly sends you its loving greetings and all good wishes. We hope that this blessed Festival, over 26-29 February, will be a wonderful time for the friends to rejoice in Bahá’u’lláh’s love and to spread happiness and good cheer to all!
This Festival in fact ushers in a period, over the coming weeks and months, of great spiritual significance for the Bahá’í community. Following the celebrations of Ayyám-i-Há, we have the bounty of the Fast, a time of prayer and reflection, every hour of which the Pen of Glory has described as being ‘endowed with a special Virtue’. The sanctified period of fasting will then conclude, this year on 20 March, with the Festival of Naw-Rúz, designated by Bahá’u’lláh as the “Day of God” and marking the beginning of the new Bahá’í year. The Festival of Riḍván, “the Divine Springtime” follows soon after, celebrating that supreme moment when the Ancient Beauty announced His God-given Mission and ushered in a new Dispensation. As you are aware, the 1st, 9th and 12th days of Riḍván—this year falling on 20, 28 April and 1 May respectively—are, along with Naw-Rúz, accounted among the Holy Days on which work should be suspended, and we are sure the friends will find beautiful ways in which to give expression to the sacred nature of these days.
Moreover, the first day of Riḍván will coincide with the closing of the current Five Year Plan and the start of the next Plan. The Assembly has been delighted to see that the friends—conscious that their efforts towards the goals of this Plan are laying a firm foundation for the next—are continuing in the closing weeks of the Plan to focus their energies upon doubling the number of core activities and establishing programmes of growth in cluster after cluster in the United Kingdom. Indeed, accounts have been received in recent days indicating that more and more clusters are passing the first milestone—a marvellous achievement! The National Assembly is humbled by these hard-won victories, which attests a community growing in strength, capacity and confidence.
As you labour on to bring Bahá’u’lláh’s healing message to a needy society, we urge you, through your reflections during the days of fasting, fervent daily prayer, thoughtful study of the Writings, and befitting celebration of the coming Holy Days, to seize every chance to fully reap the benefits of this auspicious time. Call down the blessings of Bahá’u’lláh upon the efforts being exerted by the community of the Greatest Name so that a befitting victory may by laid at His Threshold this coming Riḍván.
Be assured of the National Assembly’s heartfelt love and of our fervent supplication that the divine bestowals of the Blessed Beauty may be showered upon you.
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
National Spiritual Assembly
Patrick O’Mara,
Secretary
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