 February 5, 2017
To the American Bahá’í community for the Feast of Mulk
Dearly loved Friends,
This Feast, as our season of fasting and joyous Naw-Rúz draw ever closer, we are powerfully reminded of the swiftness with which this year―and the two-hundredth anniversary of the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh it will mark―is progressing.
We are delighted, therefore, to share with you news of the launching of a “Bicentenary Resources” website designed to provide Bahá’í communities and individual believers with guidance and materials to aid us all in finding creative ways “to reach out,” in the words of the Universal House of Justice, “to the widest possible cross-section of society and to all those with whom [we] share a connection” with loving invitations to join us in celebrating the appearance, exactly two centuries ago, of a wondrous new Manifestation of God, “One Who was to be the Bearer of a new Message for humankind.”
The new site (accessible at www.bahai.us/bicentenary-resources) has already been supplied with a rich assortment of extracts from the Bahá’í writings for guidance and reflection, answers to frequently asked questions, ideas for celebrations and special events, promotional materials, suggestions and tools for contacting the media, videos, and more, and we encourage you to begin making use of it immediately.
Importantly, the site will not be static, but a living, evolving repository of resources. As the year progresses, fresh guidance and materials will continually be added―both by the Bahá’í National Center team developing the site and by you, as you write to us with reports of your activities and successes and with suggestions to share with others.
We note, further, that the site will not be devoted solely to the Bicentenary of Bahá’u’lláh’s birth but also to the Blessed Báb’s, which we will celebrate in 2019. In this connection, we call attention to the Supreme Body’s counsel:
[A]lthough each anniversary is associated primarily with just one of the Manifestations, in each case the celebrations ought to encompass both of the Twin Birthdays, and events may be spread out across the full length of the two days. We ardently hope the site will grow to become an invaluable center of news, research, reflection, advice, and creativity that will propel with great effectiveness our “concerted effort” as a national community to “convey a sense of what it means for humanity that these two Luminaries rose successively above the horizon of the world.”
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF THE UNITED STATES
 Kenneth E. Bowers
Secretary
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