Ridvan 2009 - The Universal House of Justice

Ridvan 2009

To the Baha'is of the World

Dearly loved Friends,

A mere three years ago we set before the Baha'i world the challenge of exploiting the framework for action that had emerged with such clarity at the conclusion of the last global Plan. The response, as we had hoped, was immediate. With great vigour the friends everywhere began to pursue the goal of establishing intensive programmes of growth in no less than 1,500 clusters worldwide, and the number of such programmes soon started to climb. But no one could have imagined then how profoundly the Lord of Hosts, in His inscrutable wisdom, intended to transform His community in so short a span of time. What a purposeful and confident community it was that celebrated its accomplishments at the midway point of the current Plan in forty-one regional conferences across the globe! What an extraordinary contrast did its coherence and energy provide to the bewilderment and confusion of a world caught in a spiral of crisis! This, indeed, was the community of the blissful to which the Guardian had referred. This was a community aware of the vast potentialities with which it has been endowed and conscious of the role it is destined to play in rebuilding a broken world. This was a community in the ascendant, subject to severe repression in one part of the globe, yet rising up undeterred and undismayed as a united whole and strengthening its capacity to achieve Baha'u'llah's purpose to liberate humankind from the yoke of the most grievous oppression. And in the nearly eighty-thousand participants who attended the conferences we saw the emergence on the historical scene of an individual believer supremely confident in the efficacy of the Plan's methods and instruments and remarkably deft at wielding them. Each and every soul of this mighty sea stood as testimony to the transforming potency of the Faith. Each and every one was evidence of Baha'u'llah's promise to assist all those who arise with detachment and sincerity to serve Him. Each and every one offered a glimpse of that race of beings, consecrated and courageous, pure and sanctified, destined to evolve over generations under the direct influence of Baha'u'llah's Revelation. In them we saw the first signs of the fulfilment of our hope expressed at the outset of the Plan that the edifying influence of the Faith would be extended to hundreds of thousands through the institute process. There is every indication that, by the end of the Ridvan period, the number of intensive programmes of growth around the world will have crossed the 1,000 mark. What more can we do at the opening of this most joyous Festival than to bow our heads in humility before God and offer Him thanksgiving for His unbounded generosity to the community of the Greatest Name.

[signed: The Universal House of Justice]

3 January 2009 - The Universal House of Justice, London conference

The Universal House of Justice

3 January 2009

To the Friends gathered at the Regional Conference in London


Our hearts are lifted up in joy as we contemplate the convocation of the followers of Baha'u'llah from Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom who have assembled on this momentous occasion, at a time of unimagined opportunity for the progress of the Cause.


You come together in a city uniquely blessed by the presence on its soil of the Resting Place of Shoghi Effendi. He it was who inaugurated the prosecution of teaching plans to be derived from the Divine Plan conceived by 'Abdu'l-Baha, thereby harnessing the energy of the early standard-bearers of the Faith for a systematic implementation of the Master's vision. That same energy now animates the efforts you have made, with strategic intent, to create the conditions for sustained, accelerated growth in cluster after cluster, efforts that are yielding notable results. The scale of the progress made in each of your countries has been commensurate with the degree to which a necessary unity of thought and purpose has emerged among the institutions whose loving guidance has brought you to this point. It is appropriate, then, that the learning acquired by dint of your efforts to exploit the Five Year Plan's framework of action in so many clusters is now being systematically disseminated among believers from both your own national communities and neighbouring countries.


It is to the most advanced of the 20 clusters in your lands where the conditions for launching intensive programmes of growth have already been met that you must now look for lessons as you deliberate on how to move at least 6 more clusters to the stage where the criteria for initiating programmes of their own can be met by Ridvan 2009. Beyond this, you must press on swiftly with the many goals that remain. May each individual--whatever his or her involvement in the Plan heretofore--shoulder a share of this vital undertaking. Determine, at this propitious moment, not to be the least overawed by the challenge facing you, not to be deterred by the convulsions of a world order now in a state of inexorable decline, not to overlook the guarantee of divine assistance promised by Baha'u'llah to every believer who would champion His Cause. Can any misgivings remain that when the divine Message is presented with clarity and in a consecrated spirit receptive souls will be attracted to its truth? Banish all doubts and, as you apply your creative energies to the task before you, have every confidence that collectively you possess an admirable measure of experience in implementing the Plan's methods, approaches and instruments--the finest means for advancing the process of entry by troops. And be assured of our earnest entreaties in the Holy Shrines that Baha'u'llah may summon the angels of heaven to your aid.

[signed: The Universal House of Justice]