Image: A devotional gathering at the Bahá’í Center in Lauro de Freitas, Brazil (Bahá’í Media Bank)

Praying together is a natural part of human life and has deep roots in the world’s religious traditions. This course explores, from a Bahá’í perspective, how people from any background gathering together to worship God can enhance the devotional character of a neighborhood, evoke the spirit of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, and enable individuals to ‘experience the sweetness of prayer, meditate upon the Creative Word, be transported on the wings of the spirit, and commune with the one Beloved’, as well as generating ‘feelings of fellowship and common cause’, and fostering ‘spiritually heightened conversations that naturally occur at such times and through which the “city of the human heart” may be opened’. The course also helps us learn how to invite our friends to attend a devotional gathering and, in due time, to accompany them as they host their own.

Based on a letter of the Universal House of Justice, 29 December 2015.