The Feast With Three Parts

A retelling for children, based on Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era by J. E. Esslemont (1923).

Picture a room slowly filling with people. Neighbors and friends step through the door, take off their coats, and find a place to sit. Some are old, some are young, some are brand new to one another. But tonight they have all come for the same reason. It is Feast night.

The Bahá'í year is split into nineteen months, and each month has nineteen days. So nineteen times a year — once at the start of every month — the friends in each town gather together for a special evening called the Nineteen Day Feast.

And here is the wonderful thing about the Feast. It is not just one thing. It has three parts, and each part is different.

The first part is quiet and beautiful. Everyone grows still, and together they listen as prayers and holy words are read aloud. This is the time for the heart. It is like turning to face the sun before the day begins — settling everyone down and reminding them why they are really there.

The second part is busy and full of voices. Now the friends talk together about how their community is doing. The people who help guide the community share their news and their plans, and then — and this is important — they ask everyone else what they think, and whether they have ideas for new and better ways to help. Nobody is left out. Even quiet ideas are listened to. The big decisions are not made somewhere far away, behind closed doors; they are talked over right here, where everyone can hear and everyone can speak.

The third part is the happiest of all. The serious talking is finished, and now it is time simply to be together. Food is shared. There might be music. People laugh and chat, and the children play. This is the part where love just spills out and fills the whole room.

Long ago, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told the friends how He hoped every gathering like this would be. He said:

All should rejoice together, hold general meetings, become as one assembly, so that the national oneness, unity and harmony may be demonstrated in the eyes of all.

He even said that on such days the friends of God should leave behind real, good marks in the world — kind and helpful things that reach all people everywhere. So the Feast was never meant to end when everyone went home. The love made there was meant to go out the door with them.

That is why the Nineteen Day Feast has three parts and not just one. When you pray together, and listen to one another, and share food and laughter together, you are not only holding a meeting. Little by little, nineteen days at a time, you are learning how to be one big family.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Three Portions: The Heart of the Nineteen Day Feast".

Esslemont, J. E.. (1923). *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*. George Allen & Unwin. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19241/pg19241-images.html