Messages of the Universal House of Justice

15 October 2016 Message

[AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM PERSIAN]

 

 

 

15 October 2016

 

 

 

To the followers of the Ancient Beauty in the sacred land of Iran

 

At this time of great joy and excitement, when the Mother Temple of South America, nestled in the foothills of the Andes, has been dedicated with the utmost dignity, reverence and majesty in the presence of Chile’s high-ranking officials, including the senior representative of its President, thousands of the followers of the Greatest Name are gathered in Santiago to celebrate the establishment of that lofty and luminous Temple.  They have also come to recall the sacrifices of their spiritual forebears who, in response to the call of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the earlier stages of His Divine Plan, pioneered to those lands and to remember the receptive and pure-hearted people of that region who accepted the message of the Abhá Beauty and who, in obedience to His teachings, exerted every effort to raise up the divine civilization which is His gift to humanity.  The radiance of those teachings and their reflection in the vibrant Bahá’í communities of that region have now become manifested in a majestic edifice of novel design erected in a most delightful setting.  This mighty structure holds in its open embrace equally all peoples of every background, race and belief and will shine out, together with its future charitable dependencies, as a bright symbol of the meaning of the oneness of humankind and of service to the peoples of the world.  The spiritual process initiated by the revelation of the mighty law of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár—continued through the establishment of a Mother Temple on every continent and pursued over many years despite countless obstacles—has, with the completion of this last continental Temple, entered a new stage, the dawning of which is the construction of national and local Houses of Worship.  Aware that the spread of the Cause and the establishment of its institutions throughout the world have always owed so much to the sacrifices of His followers in the Cradle of the Faith, at this historic moment we call you to mind, you moth-like lovers of His light, who have ever sacrificed yourselves for its flame and accepted every ordeal in the path of the All-Merciful.  O lovers of the Abhá Beauty, consider how the victories achieved illustrate these soul-stirring words in His Mathnaví:

 

O Beauty of God, step out from behind the veil,

That the sun may rise above the horizon of the West.

[signed:  The Universal House of Justice]