Nationwide prayer campaign
24 September 2019
17 ‘Izzat (Might) 176
To the dearly loved friends in Aotearoa
Tēnā Koutou
The beloved Universal House of Justice’s gift to the Bahá’í world of the bicentenary film “Dawn of the Light” has been received with profound gratitude. Many of you will already have eagerly viewed this outstanding presentation (found on the bicentenary website and on Youtube), which has given each of us a magnificent tool for touching the hearts of those we are endeavouring to bring into the community-building processes, and ultimately into the widening embrace of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation.
With less than two Bahá’í months until the joyous festival of the Twin Holy Birthday bicentenary celebrations, the National Spiritual Assembly, in collaboration with the Regional Bahá’í Councils, is initiating a nationwide prayer campaign for the months of Mashíyyat (Will) and ‘Ilm (Knowledge), from sunset on Thursday 26 September to sunset on 3 November. We urge all friends to offer at least one of the Báb’s prayers each day during this campaign period, that this country might soar to the greatest possible heights of achievement in our efforts to befittingly honour the Báb through advancing the Cause of God.
You are, of course, free to choose any of the beautiful prayers of the Báb in this undertaking. The National Assembly itself offers the following prayer by the Báb for all the dear friends in your efforts to “help awaken hearts to the ‘greatness of this day’”:
Glory be unto Thee, O Lord, Thou Who hast brought into being all created things, through the power of Thy behest. O Lord! Assist those who have renounced all else but Thee, and grant them a mighty victory. Send down upon them, O Lord, the concourse of the angels in heaven and earth and all that is between, to aid Thy servants, to succour and strengthen them, to enable them to achieve success, to sustain them, to invest them with glory, to confer upon them honour and exaltation, to enrich them and to make them triumphant with a wondrous triumph.
Thou art their Lord, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, the Lord of all the worlds. Strengthen this Faith, O Lord, through the power of these servants, and cause them to prevail over all the peoples of the world; for they, of a truth, are Thy servants who have detached themselves from aught else but Thee, and Thou, verily, art the protector of true believers.
Grant Thou, O Lord, that their hearts may, through allegiance to this, Thine inviolable Faith, grow stronger than anything else in the heavens and on earth and in whatsoever is between them; and strengthen, O Lord, their hands with the tokens of Thy wondrous power that they may manifest Thy power before the gaze of all mankind.
– The Báb
Through the combined power of worship and service, and with the beautiful resource of the film “Dawn of the Light”, we have every confidence that the friends will contribute greatly to a flourishing of activity in all clusters, particularly the three clusters* where efforts are being made to traverse, by the bicentenary, the second milestone in their development.
Arohanui,
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of New Zealand
*Rotorua and Taranaki in the North Island; West Coast in the South Island.
