Every nineteen days, at the opening of each Bahá'í month, the community gathers for devotion, consultation, and fellowship — the basic unit of Bahá'í communal life.
Tagged: Community Prayer Sacred time Bahá'í
How It Is Practiced
The Feast has three portions in fixed order. First, devotion: prayers and readings from the Bahá'í writings, often sung or read by several voices. Second, administration: reports from the Local Spiritual Assembly, consultation on the community's affairs, and word from the wider Bahá'í world — the one regular channel by which every member's counsel reaches the institutions. Third, fellowship: refreshments and social time, the host's offering. Children attend, guests are welcomed, and the whole is kept, the writings insist, as a feast — 'a spiritual festival.'
Purpose and Meaning
Nineteen is the calendar's heartbeat (nineteen months of nineteen days), and the Feast makes every believer a governor for an evening: devotion flows into consultation, consultation into food. Bahá'í devotion has no clergy and no congregational worship service; the Feast is its replacement — the community's piety, business, and table joined in one recurring act.
References
- Nineteen Day Feast — Wikipedia Free / open access
Related Practices
- The Obligatory Prayers — Each day the Bahá'í chooses one of three revealed obligatory prayers — short, medium, or long — the fixed point of Bahá'í devotion.
- The Sabbath Table — Friday night's table — candles, wine, two loaves, blessings, and song — is the home liturgy at the center of Jewish devotion.
- Jumuʿah — The Friday Prayer — At noon on Friday the community gathers for a sermon and a shortened prayer: the week's public devotion, commanded in the Qur'an itself.
Related Across the Site
- Eucharistic Adoration Devotion — In Eucharistic adoration the consecrated host is displayed and the faithful pray in its presence in silence.
- First Fridays Devotion Devotion — The First Fridays devotion joins Mass and Communion on nine consecutive first Fridays to the promises of the Sacred Heart.
- Jumuʿah — The Friday Prayer Devotion — At noon on Friday the community gathers for a sermon and a shortened prayer: the week's public devotion, commanded in the Qur'an itself.
- The Angelus Devotion — The Angelus is a short prayer on the Incarnation, prayed at morning, noon, and evening at the sound of a bell.
- The Bahá'í Fast Devotion — For the nineteen days of the month of ʿAlāʾ, the last month before the spring New Year, Bahá'ís fast from sunrise to sunset.
- The Obligatory Prayers Devotion — Each day the Bahá'í chooses one of three revealed obligatory prayers — short, medium, or long — the fixed point of Bahá'í devotion.
- Bahá'í Obligatory Prayers Prayer or Creed — Three prayers revealed by Bahá'u'lláh — Short, Medium, and Long — of which each Bahá'í chooses one to recite daily.
- Bahá'í Prayers Prayer or Creed — Revealed prayers of Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá for occasions, needs, and gatherings of every kind.