Counsellor addresses an historic online gathering

May 1

May 1 Counsellor addresses an historic online gathering

On the Ridván afternoon of Sunday 26 April 2020, during the “lockdown” period of the Level 4 Alert for the COVID-19 pandemic, all but a handful of the 57 delegates gathered online with the National Spiritual Assembly, Counsellor Tessa Scrine, Auxiliary Board members, members of the Regional Bahá’í Councils and Office of Public Affairs to hear the tellers’ report on the outcome of the election of the National Spiritual Assembly, the details of which have previously been shared.

In addition to the reading of the Ridván Message, a highlight for the gathering was to hear an address by our much-loved Counsellor, who first paid tribute to outgoing member of the National Assembly, Dr Shirin Foroughian, who had been an Administrative Aide to the Counsellors even before being elected to the National Spiritual Assembly eight years ago, and who is moving to the United States indefinitely. Ms Scrine honoured Shirin’s qualities and her dedicated service over many years. The Counsellor then went on to refer to the words of the Universal House of Justice in the Ridván Message, which pay tribute to the National Spiritual Assemblies of the world as the “unflagging generals of the Army of Light”. She commented that it was a privilege and joy to work in collaboration with the National Spiritual Assembly of New Zealand, and that for a small country, we have faced a lot of challenges, and the National Spiritual Assembly has shown it has risen to increasing levels of capacity.

The Counsellor mentioned that for the few cycles of the Five Year Plan that are remaining, there is so much to be done to achieve the goals that this country set for itself for this Plan. She spoke of the “groups of families” strategy being at the heart of enabling those who are “deprived to be spiritually nourished, those who increasingly thirst for answers to be satisfied, and those who long to work for the betterment of the world to be offered the means.” (Ridván Message 177). She said that the Universal House of Justice has articulated for us how to contribute to the world and the opportunities before us. They have modelled for us such compassion and love. How do Local Spiritual Assemblies look at what the whole population of their locality needs and how the Bahá’í community might respond, given our resources and the needs of the Plan? She went on to say that the National Spiritual Assembly has modelled hope and optimism. Can we, as individuals, look at carrying this into our interactions with others? She urged friends to pray for the National Spiritual Assembly members and their families.

The Counsellor concluded her remarks by quoting from the Message of the Universal House of Justice to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors on 27 December 2005, which cites the words of the beloved Guardian:

Above all, the friends need to remain ever conscious of the magnitude of the spiritual forces that are at their disposition. They are members of a community “whose world-embracing, continually consolidating activities constitute the one integrating process in a world whose institutions, secular as well as religious, are for the most part dissolving.” Of all the peoples of the world, “they alone can recognize, amidst the welter of a tempestuous age, the Hand of the Divine Redeemer that traces its course and controls its destinies. They alone are aware of the silent growth of that orderly world polity whose fabric they themselves are weaving.” It is their institutions that “will come to be regarded as the hallmark and glory of the age” they have been called upon to establish. The “building process,” to which they are consecrated, is “the one hope of a stricken society.” For, it is “actuated by the generating influence of God’s changeless Purpose, and is evolving within the framework of the Administrative Order of His Faith.” And remind them that they are the illumined souls envisioned by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His prayer: “Heroes are they, O my Lord, lead them to the field of battle. Guides are they, make them to speak out with arguments and proofs. Ministering servants are they, cause them to pass round the cup that brimmeth with the wine of certitude. O my God, make them to be songsters that carol in fair gardens, make them lions that couch in the thickets, whales that plunge in the vasty deep.”