Message from the Universal House of Justice regarding racial prejudice

27 July 2020 / 16 Words 177

All Local Spiritual Assemblies
All Regional Bahá’í Councils
All Registered Groups

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

On 22 July 2020, the Universal House of Justice addressed the attached letter to the Bahá’ís of the United States, and it is now also accessible on the Bahá’í Reference Library website. The National Spiritual Assembly and the Counsellors studied the message together this weekend and though we know that it has already been widely circulated, we wished to share it with you directly as well, and through you with all the friends. Please arrange for its widest possible distribution in your communities.

The truths in this message about the nature of prejudice and how change is accomplished are as applicable to the Canadian context of cultural and racial prejudice as they are to conditions in our sister community of the United States. In its 10 July 2020 call for a devotional gathering in every household involved in the community-building work in Canada, the National Assembly noted that these spaces provide an opportunity for meaningful conversation. As the attached message so powerfully conveys, it is these intimate conversations between enkindled souls that release the powers of love, “create new susceptibilities in human hearts, open minds to moral persuasion, and loosen the hold of biased norms and social systems so that they can gradually take on a new form in keeping with the requirements of humanity’s age of maturity. You are channels for this divine love; let it flow through you to all who cross your path. Infuse it into every neighborhood and social space in which you move to build capacity to canalize the society-building power of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation. There can be no rest until the destined outcome is achieved.”

This herculean effort, placed in the context of the framework of the Plan by the House of Justice’s letter, is already underway. Thrilling news has reached us of the widespread, immediate response to the call for a new wave of prayer and meaningful conversation that draws thousands into the community-building work, fuelled by the empowering instrument of the training institute. We urge the friends — individually, in their families and among groups of friends — to study the 22 July letter and allow it to enrich every aspect of the mighty endeavour before us in this “final year, of the final Plan, in a series spanning the final quarter of the opening century of the Formative Age”.¹ The National Assembly’s prayers surround them.

With loving Bahá’í greetings,
NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF CANADA

Karen McKye, Secretary

¹ 9 May 2020, Universal House of Justice to all National Spiritual Assemblies

The Universal House of Justice – 22 July 2020