Summer 2022 issue of Bahá’í Canada

Special Edition: The Nine Year Plan

This is a special issue of Bahá’í Canada, containing a wealth of guidance from the Universal House of Justice and National Spiritual Assembly over the last year, meant to serve the friends as they enter the Nine Year Plan, part of a series of Plans dedicated to “releasing the society-building power of the Faith in ever-greater measures.”[i] This is guidance that will be referred to time and again as individuals, institutions, and communities embark on this “sacred twenty-five-year venture, generational in its scope and significance…”[ii]

This issue also contains an article entitled “In the throes of learning,” prepared at the request of the National Spiritual Assembly and offered here as a gift. It offers an historical narrative of the progress of the Faith in Canada over the 25-year series of global Plans from 1996-2021, highlighting significant achievements. The piece focuses on the field of expansion and consolidation, as our national community raised up the training institute in this land. Reflecting on how far we have come brings to mind the House of Justice’s statement that by the end of the next 25-year series of Plans, “the Bahá’í community will need to have acquired capacities that can scarcely be glimpsed at present.”[iii]

The Bahá’í Canada website contains many recently-published articles including reports and photographs from the 72nd National Convention, as well as articles about youth and adults who offered a period of service during the One Year Plan, “a year for profound reflection on the life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the strength of the Covenant of which He was the Centre.”[iv] The website also contains stories from the wave of global conferences called by the Universal House of Justice as well as transcripts of the closing remarks the Counsellors gave at the National Convention. We hope that these talks will be helpful to the friends in furthering their understanding of the implications of the Nine Year Plan and the needs of the Cause in Canada.

[i] From the Universal House of Justice to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors, 30 December 2021.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] From the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís of the World, 25 November 2020.

Summer 2022 issue