Joy and faith highlighted as imperative to progress of communities

Delegates from across Australia have been encouraged to maintain joy and hope at all times as they gathered at the 2026 National Baha’i Convention. 

Member of the Continental Board of Counsellors for Australasia, Dr Vahid Saberi, called to mind the words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, the son of the Founder of the Baha’i Faith, that “Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded.” 

Dr Saberi noted that the knowledge that we are in service to the betterment of the world should always fill us with joy. This focus on joy set the scene for the study of the recent message released by the international governing body of the Baha’i Faith, the Universal House of Justice, on the occasion of the Ridvan festival. 

The Ridvan message highlights the “ongoing learning” taking place all around the globe – learning that is imbued with “a deeper recognition of the significance of the Baha’i community’s endeavours and the implications they hold for a troubled world in desperate need of direction.” 

The message also highlights the importance of conversation, the importance of grassroots action and a compensatory perspective – a shift in viewing the community-building efforts not only as a set of activities but a cultivation of a new way of life.

Dr Saberi noted that each year “the Ridvan message sets the stage for the discussions at Convention by conveying a sense of the current progress of the Baha’i world and the work that lies ahead.”  He said the messages of the Universal House of Justice are structured as a dynamic interplay of reading reality, identifying progress, and guiding future action.  

Dr Saberi said the message is to be studied “with a posture of faith, reverence, and learning in addition to intellectual analysis” – in light of experience and always with the aim of generating action.  

“A good question to ask is “what does this mean for me, for the institution or agency I serve and the community I live in?” Dr Saberi said. 

Dr Saberi noted that we are moving through an “age of transition” in human history but that the community should view the storms with confidence, hope and assurance, not despair. 

He used the example of the friends in Iran who, through challenging times, continue in their conviction and stand firm in their faith. 

“The Baha’is of Iran express this hope by continuing every day in the face of existential threats,” he said, “relying on God and faith, and choosing kindness when everything is against them.”

Dr Saberi said it was anticipated that the conversations at the National Convention would be profound, insightful and based on direct experience rather than on assumptions or theory – as was mentioned by the Universal House of Justice in the Ridvan message.  

Dr Saberi closed his remarks by sharing the following words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha: