The Nineteen Day Feast

The practice

The Bahá'í calendar has nineteen months of nineteen days, and at the start of each month the community gathers for the Nineteen Day Feast. Bahá'u'lláh ordained the Feast, and it has become the foundation stone of local Bahá'í life in thousands of communities.

How it is kept

A Feast has three parts. The devotional part is prayers and readings from the Bahá'í writings. The consultative part is reports and open discussion of the community's affairs, where every member may speak. The social part is food and fellowship, which is why the gathering carries the name Feast even though no meal is required.

What it means

The Feast joins three things that often live apart: worship, democracy, and friendship. The Bahá'í community has no clergy, so the Feast is where the whole body meets its own life, nineteen times a year, in a rhythm as regular as the calendar itself.