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Messages to Canada

  • Author:

  • Shoghi Effendi

  • Source:
  • Bahá’í Canada Publications
  • Pages:
  • 276
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Pages 38-39

Letter of 20 August 1932

20 August 1932

To individual believers

Beloved Friends in the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh,
Shoghi Effendi was deeply touched by your letter of July 18th, 1932 and he has charged me to thank you on his behalf and express his lively appreciation of your heartfelt sympathy at the great loss which the Faith has come to suffer through the sudden passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf.
Your beautiful words, which eloquently testified to your genuine love for our departed Khánum, have immensely relieved the burden of sorrow that weighs so heavily upon our Guardian’s heart and have given him the assurance that the friends are amply sharing his grief at this cruel hour. For in this great calamity his share is, perhaps, the greatest as he had found in the Greatest Holy Leaf the only one who could sustain his energies and inspire him with hope and vigour. Her departure, at this critical hour, will, undoubtedly, continue to be deeply felt for many long years.
The removal of her physical presence from our midst, however, though a source of immeasurable sorrow, will ultimately serve to rekindle the flame of faith in our hearts and inspire us with a fresh resolve to promote and safeguard the very best interests of the Cause. Through intense sufferings and hardships this Faith of God has been able to win its immortal victories and it has always welcomed such moments of profound and well-nigh demoralizing sorrow as providential means whereby its vitality can be best safeguarded.
Might not this calamity serve to intensify our devotion to the Cause and by deepening our spiritual insight make us worthy instruments for the promotion and the consolidation of the Faith?
The Guardian is anxiously waiting to see the friends once more united and whole-heartedly striving to spread those teachings and principles through which an ailing humanity can alone find the real path to salvation.

Yours in His Service,

H. Rabbani

[From the Guardian:]

Dear and precious co-workers:

I am greatly touched and relieved by your message. I value the sentiments you have expressed and I will pray that the Almighty may guide and sustain you in your efforts to follow in her footsteps and to perpetuate the memory of her glorious life.

Your true brother,

Shoghi