THE DAY OF THE COVENANT

Devotional Program

1. Music (3:01) – soft fade at 2:11

2. From the Universal House of Justice

3. CD – Everlasting (2:55)

4. Prayer on the Firmness of the Covenant (Tamil)

5. Readings on the Covenant from Shoghi Effendi

6. Chant: Wahai Putra Wujud

7. Extracts from the Medium Obligatory Prayer

8. Prayer for Praise and Grattitude (Tamil)

9. Selections of Writings by Abdul-Baha on the Covenant

10. Selections of Writings by Abdul-Baha on the Covenant

11. Chant: Kadavulin Namum

12. Selections of Writings by Abdul-Baha on the Covenant

13. Selections of Writings by Abdul-Baha on the Covenant

14. CD – Garden of Thine Heart (1:48)

FROM THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF

JUSTICE

A Covenant in the religious sense is a binding agreement between

God and man, whereby God requires of man certain behaviour in

return for which He guarantees certain blessings, or whereby He

gives man certain bounties in return for which He takes from those

who accept them an undertaking to behave in a certain way.

(23 March 1975, from a letter written by the Universal House of Justice to

an individual believer)

CD: EVERLASTING O SON OF SPIRIT!

My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that

thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting.

PRAYER ON THE FIRMNESS IN THE COVENANT

Make firm our steps, O Lord, in Thy path and strengthen Thou our hearts in Thine obedience. Turn our faces toward the beauty of

Thy oneness, and gladden our bosoms with the signs of Thy divine unity. Adorn our bodies with the robe of Thy bounty, and remove from our eyes the veil of sinfulness, and give us the chalice of Thy grace; that the essence of all beings may sing Thy praise before the

vision of Thy grandeur. Reveal then Thyself, O Lord, by Thy merciful utterance and the mystery of Thy divine being, that the holy ecstasy of prayer may fill our souls—a prayer that shall rise

above words and letters and transcend the murmur of syllables and sounds—that all things may be merged into nothingness before the

revelation of Thy splendor.

Lord! These are servants that have remained fast and firm in Thy Covenant and Thy Testament, that have held fast unto the

cord of constancy in Thy Cause and clung unto the hem of the robe of Thy grandeur. Assist them, O Lord, with Thy grace, confirm them with Thy power and strengthen their loins in obedience to

Thee.

Thou art the Pardoner, the Gracious.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

READINGS ON THE COVENANT FROM

SHOGHI EFFENDI

"So firm and mighty is this Covenant," He Who is its appointed

Center has affirmed, "that from the beginning of time until the

present day no religious Dispensation hath produced its like." "It is

indubitably clear," He, furthermore, has stated, "that the pivot of the

oneness of mankind is nothing else but the power of the Covenant."

"Know thou," He has written, "that the 'Sure Handle' mentioned

from the foundation of the world in the Books, the Tablets and the

Scriptures of old is naught else but the Covenant and the

Testament." And again: "The lamp of the Covenant is the light of

the world, and the words traced by the Pen of the Most High a

limitless ocean." "The Lord, the All-Glorified," He has moreover

declared, "hath, beneath the shade of the Tree of Anisa (Tree of

Life), made a new Covenant and established a great Testament...

Hath such a Covenant been established in any previous Dispensation,

age, period or century? Hath such a Testament, set down by the Pen

of the Most High, ever been witnessed? No, by God!" And finally:

"The power of the Covenant is as the heat of the sun which

quickeneth and promoteth the development of all created things on

earth. The light of the Covenant, in like manner, is the educator of

the minds, the spirits, the hearts and souls of men." To this same

Covenant He has in His writings referred as the "Conclusive

Testimony," the "Universal Balance," the "Magnet of God's grace,"

the "Upraised Standard," the "Irrefutable Testament," "the all-mighty

Covenant, the like of which the sacred Dispensations of the past have

never witnessed" and "one of the distinctive features of this most

mighty cycle."

Extolled by the writer of the Apocalypse as "the Ark of His (God)

Testament"; associated with the gathering beneath the "Tree of

Anisa" (Tree of Life) mentioned by Baha'u'llah in the Hidden

Words; glorified by Him, in other passages of His writings, as the

"Ark of Salvation" and as "the Cord stretched betwixt the earth and

the Abha Kingdom," this Covenant has been bequeathed to posterity

in a Will and Testament which, together with the Kitab-i-Aqdas and

several Tablets, in which the rank and station of Abdu'l-Baha are

unequivocally disclosed, constitute the chief buttresses designed by

the Lord of the Covenant Himself to shield and support, after His

ascension, the appointed Center of His Faith and the Delineator of

its future institutions.

(Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, pp. 238-239)

CHANT: WAHAI PUTRA WUJUD!

WAHAI PUTRA WUJUD!

Kalbumu adalah rumahKu, sucikanlah supaya Aku dapat turun kedalamnya. Rohmu adalah tempat wahyuKu; bersihkanlah bagi

penjelmaanKu.

O SON OF BEING!

Thy heart is my home; sanctify it for My descent. Thy spirit is My place of revelation; cleanse it for My manifestation.

EXTRACTS FROM THE MEDIUM

OBLIGATORY PRAYER

I bear witness to Thy unity and Thy oneness, and that Thou art God,

and that there is none other God beside Thee. Thou hast, verily,

revealed Thy Cause, fulfilled Thy Covenant, and opened wide the

door of Thy grace to all that dwell in heaven and on earth. Blessing

and peace, salutation and glory, rest upon Thy loved ones, whom the

changes and chances of the world have not deterred from turning

unto Thee, and who have given their all, in the hope of obtaining

that which is with Thee. Thou art, in truth, the Ever-Forgiving, the

All-Bountiful.

(Baha'u'llah, from the Medium Obligatory Prayer, Prayers and

Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 316)

PRAYER FOR PRAISE AND GRATTITUDE

In the Name of God, the Most High! Lauded and glorified art Thou, Lord, God Omnipotent! Thou before Whose wisdom the

wise falleth short and faileth, before Whose knowledge the learned confesseth his ignorance, before Whose might the strong waxeth

weak, before Whose wealth the rich testifieth to his poverty, before Whose light the enlightened is lost in darkness, toward the shrine of

Whose knowledge turneth the essence of all understanding and around the sanctuary of Whose presence circle the souls of all

mankind.

How then can I sing and tell of Thine Essence, which the wisdom of the wise and the learning of the learned have failed to

comprehend, inasmuch as no man can sing that which he understandeth not, nor recount that unto which he cannot attain,

whilst Thou hast been from everlasting the Inaccessible, the Unsearchable. Powerless though I be to rise to the heavens of Thy glory and soar in the realms of Thy knowledge, I can but recount

Thy tokens that tell of Thy glorious handiwork.

By Thy Glory! O Beloved of all hearts, Thou that alone canst still the pangs of yearning for Thee! Though all the dwellers of

heaven and earth unite to glorify the least of Thy signs, wherein and whereby Thou hast revealed Thyself, yet would they fail, how much

more to praise Thy holy Word, the creator of all Thy tokens.

All praise and glory be to Thee, Thou of Whom all things have testified that Thou art one and there is none other God but Thee, Who hast been from everlasting exalted above all peer or likeness and to everlasting shalt remain the same. All kings are but Thy

servants and all beings, visible and invisible, as naught before Thee. There is none other God but Thee, the Gracious, the

Powerful, the Most High.

Bahá’u’lláh

SELECTIONS OF WRITINGS BY ABDUL-BAHA ON THE COVENANT

Today no power can conserve the oneness of the Baha'i world save the Covenant of God; otherwise differences like unto a most great

tempest will encompass the Baha'i world. It is evident that the axis of the oneness of the world of humanity is the power of the Covenant and nothing else. Had the Covenant not come to pass, had it not been revealed from the Supreme Pen and had not the Book of the Covenant, like unto the ray of the Sun of Reality, illuminated the

world, the forces of the Cause of God would have been utterly scattered and certain souls who were the prisoners of their own

passions and lusts would have taken into their hands an axe, cutting the root of this Blessed Tree. Every person would have pushed

forward his own desire and every individual aired his own opinion!

(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 51)

SELECTIONS OF WRITINGS BY ABDUL-BAHA ON THE COVENANT

Hold thou fast to the Covenant of thy Lord, and as the days go by, increase thy store of love for His beloved ones. Bend thou with

tenderness over the servitors of the All-Merciful, that thou mayest hoist the sail of love upon the ark of peace that moveth across the

seas of life. Let nothing grieve thee, and be thou angered at none. It behoveth thee to be content with the Will of God, and a true and

loving and trusted friend to all the peoples of the earth, without any exceptions whatever. This is the quality of the sincere, the way of the saints, the emblem of those who believe in the unity of God, and the

raiment of the people of Baha.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, pp. 25-26)

CHANT: KADAVULIN NAMUM

Blessed is the spot, and the house, and the place, and the city, and the heart, and the mountain, and the

refuge, and the cave, and the valley, and the land, and the sea, and the island, and the meadow.

Where mention of God hath been made and His praise glorified.

Bahá'u'lláh

SELECTIONS OF WRITINGS BY ABDUL-BAHA ON THE COVENANT

Today, every wise, vigilant and foresighted person is awakened, and to him are unveiled the mysteries of the future which show that

nothing save the power of the Covenant is able to stir and move the heart of humanity, just as the New and Old Testaments propounded

throughout all regions the Cause of Christ and were the pulsating power in the body of the human world. A tree that hath a root shall

bear fruit, while the tree that hath none, no matter how high and hardy it may be, will eventually wither, perish and become but a log

fit for the fire.

The Covenant of God is like unto a vast and fathomless ocean. A billow shall rise and surge therefrom and shall cast ashore all

accumulated foam.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 223)

SELECTIONS OF WRITINGS BY

ABDUL-BAHA ON THE COVENANT

O thou daughter of the Kingdom! Thy letter was received. It was like the melody of the divine nightingale, whose song delighteth the hearts. This is because its contents indicated faith, assurance and firmness in the Covenant and the Testament. Today the dynamic

power of the world of existence is the power of the Covenant which like unto an artery pulsateth in the body of the contingent world and

protecteth Baha'i unity.

The Baha'is are commanded to establish the oneness of mankind; if they cannot unite around one point how will they be able to bring

about the unity of mankind?

The purpose of the Blessed Beauty in entering into this Covenant and Testament was to gather all existent beings around one point so that the thoughtless souls, who in every cycle and generation have been the cause of dissension, may not undermine the Cause. He hath, therefore, commanded that whatever emanateth from the Centre of the Covenant is right and is under His protection and

favour, while all else is error.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, pp. 208-209)

CD: GARDEN OF THINE HEART O FRIEND!

In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from

the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold. Treasure

the companionship of the righteous and eschew all fellowship with

the ungodly.