You may be sure his loving prayers are with you in all you do
for the beloved Faith.
With warmest greetings,
R. Rabbani
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers:
The progress achieved in the course of the opening year of
the Five Year Plan, to which the newly emerged independent
Canadian Bahá’í Community is solemnly committed, is such
as to excite the admiration, and merit the gratitude, of the
entire Bahá’í world. A community, so small in numbers, so
restricted in resources, labouring over so extensive a field,
shouldering such weighty responsibilities, has passed through
the initial stage of its task and discharged its duties with such
distinction as to be worthy of the glowing promises and weighty
utterances recorded in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Tablets regarding the
material as well as the spiritual potentialities with which that
great and promising Dominion has been endowed.
Through the swift and marvellous increase in its membership;
through its faithful and uncompromising adherence to
both the spiritual and administrative principles of the Faith it
so nobly serves; through the multiplication of its administrative
centres from the Atlantic to the Pacific seaboard; through
the steady consolidation of its local and national Funds designed
to sustain its ever-unfolding activities; through the spirit
consistently manifested by the small yet eager and valiant band
of its pioneers and administrators; and more recently through
the official recognition providentially accorded the body of its
national elected representatives by both chambers of the Legislature
in that Dominion—an act wholly unprecedented in
the annals of the Faith in any country, in either East or West—this vigorous, divinely sustained, resistlessly advancing community,
has not only fulfilled the expectations and hopes that
greeted its birth, but set a brilliant example to its sister communities
in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
The task which it has so splendidly inaugurated and which
is being now prosecuted with such vigour, devotion, single-mindedness,
harmony and determination, is still in the initial
stage of its development. The process that has stimulated the
growth and increased the number of its administrative centres
must be accelerated no matter how great the sacrifice involved.
The development of the local and national Funds must
be continuously maintained as a prelude to the establishment
of local and national endowments and the ultimate erection
of a House of Worship that will incarnate the soul of a flourishing
nation-wide community. The initiation of a systematic
and sustained campaign beyond the frontiers of that Dominion,
and in obedience to the Mandate of the Author of the Divine
Plan, to which it stands inescapably pledged, and aiming
at the introduction of the Faith in Greenland and the conversion
of the Eskimos still remains to be undertaken. The consolidation
of the summer school, the gradual incorporation of
firmly established, properly functioning Assemblies are, moreover,
objectives that must under no circumstances be overlooked
or neglected.
As the operation of the Plan gathers momentum the members
of this community must evince a still greater measure of
solidarity, rise to higher levels of heroism, demonstrate a greater
capacity for collective achievement, and attract still more
abundant blessings on the varied enterprises on which they
have embarked.
I am following the unfoldment of their Plan with eager
and sustained interest. My ardent prayers will surround and
accompany its prosecutors at every stage of their historic undertaking.
My confidence in their ultimate success is not only
unshaken, but bas been immensely reinforced. May He Who
watches over them guide every step they take, bless every measure
they adopt, remove every obstacle that impedes their onward
march, and fulfil every desire they cherish for the future
glory, honour and greatness of their beloved Faith in that vast
and richly blessed Dominion.
Shoghi
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