This Interfaith Devotional program focuses on the importance of mothers. These readings have been selected from various religious traditions. Please come and join us on Sundays at 9:30 am at the Beaverton Baha’i Center.
Opening Prayer
O loved handmaidens of God! Consider not your present merits and capacities, rather fix your gaze on the favours and confirmations of the Blessed Beauty, because His everlasting grace will make of the insignificant plant a blessed tree, will turn the mirage into cool water and wine; will cause the forsaken atom to become the very essence of being, the puny one erudite in the school of knowledge. It enableth a thorny bush to give forth blossoms, and the dark earth to produce fragrant and rich hyacinths. It will transmute the stone into a ruby of great price, and fill the sea shells with brilliant pearls.
It will assist a fledgling schoolchild to become a learned teacher and enable a frail embryo to reveal the reality of the verse:
“Hallowed be the Lord, the Most Excellent of all creators.” Verily, my Lord is powerful over things.
Baha’i Faith, Bahá’u’lláh
First Reading
One Companion asked, “O Apostle of God! Who is the person worthiest of my consideration?” He replied, “Your Mother.” He asked again, “And second to my mother?” The Prophet said, “Your mother.” The companion insisted, “And then?” The messenger of God said, “After your mother, your father.”
Islam, Hadith of Bukhari
By My Life! The names of handmaidens who are devoted to God are written and set down by the Pen of the Most High in the Crimson Book. They excel over men in the sight of God. How numerous are the heroes and knights in the field who are bereft of the True One and have no share in His recognition, but thou hast attained and received thy fill.
Baha’i Faith, Bahá’u’lláh
Music
Music
Second Reading
For mothers are the first educators, the first mentors; and truly it is the mothers who determine the happiness, the future greatness, the courteous ways and learning and judgment, the understanding and the faith of their little ones.
Baha’i Faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
For the Lord hath … confirmed the authority of the mother over the sons… And he that honoureth his mother is as one that layeth up treasure … and he that is obedient unto the Lord shall be a comfort to his mother.
Deuterocanonical Apocrypha, Sirach
Happy is it to honour mother.
Buddhist, Dhammapada
In some respects woman is superior to man. She is more tender-hearted, more receptive, her intuition is more intense. … In the necessity of life, woman is more instinct with power than man, for to her he owes his very existence. If the mother is educated then her children will be well taught. When the mother is wise, then will the children be led into the path of wisdom. If the mother be religious she will show her children how they should love God. If the mother is moral she guides her little ones into the ways of uprightness. It is clear therefore that the future generation depends on the mothers of today.
Baha’i Faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Music
Music
Third Reading
Perhaps, if we are lucky, Our Earth mother
Will wrap herself in a fourfold robe of white meal,
Full of frost flowers;
A floor of ice will spread over the world,
The forests because of the cold will lean to one side,
Their arms will break beneath the weight of snow.
When the days are thus,
The flesh of our Earth mother will crack with cold.
Then in spring when she is replete with living waters,
Our mothers,
All different kinds of corn,
In their earth mother shall we lay to rest.
With their earth mother’s living waters
They will be made into new being;
Into their sun father’s daylight
They will come out standing;
Yonder to all directions
They will stretch out their hands calling for rain.
Then with their fresh waters
The rain makers will pass us on our roads.
Clasping their young ones (the ears of corn) in their arms
They will rear their children.
Gathering them into our houses,
Following these toward whom our thoughts bend,
With our thoughts following them,
Thus we shall always live.
Native American Religion, Zuni Song
O ye loving mothers, know ye that in God’s sight, the best of all ways to worship Him is to educate the children and train them in all the perfections of humankind; and no nobler deed than this can be imagined.
Baha’i Faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Music
Open Prayers
Music
Closing Prayer
Create in me a pure heart, O my God, and renew a tranquil conscience within me, O my Hope! Through the spirit of power confirm Thou me in Thy Cause, O my Best-Beloved, and by the light of Thy glory reveal unto me Thy path, O Thou the Goal of my desire! Through the power of Thy transcendent might lift me up unto the heaven of Thy holiness, O Source of my being, and by the breezes of Thine eternity gladden me, O Thou Who art my God! Let Thine everlasting melodies breathe tranquility on me, O my Companion, and let the riches of Thine ancient countenance deliver me from all except Thee, O my Master, and let the tidings of the revelation of Thine incorruptible Essence bring me joy, O Thou Who art the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden!
Baha’i Faith, Bahá’u’lláh
- Cover – Honoring Mothers
- Local Cover – Honoring Mothers
- Program – Honoring Mothers
- Readings – Honoring Mothers
- Readings (rtf) – Honoring Mothers
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