27 April 2025

To the compassionate hearts of Vancouver,

With deepest sorrow, we join in mourning the tragedy that occurred yesterday at the Lapu Lapu Day festival. In times of great calamity and loss, it becomes all the more clear that every resident of our city must be seen as part of one family, tightly bound by a shared humanity. The loss of lives at the festival shatters our hearts as if it were our own family taken from us. The Vancouver Police Chief solemnly stated today, “This is the darkest day in our city.” Our response to such darkness is clear. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá beautifully stated, “Shed the light of a boundless love on every human being whom you meet.” It is our hope that acts of service in the honour of the victims will help weave unshakeable bonds of love, compassion, and unity throughout our city. It is our yearning that friends and neighbours will come together to hold gatherings dedicated to prayers that will rise as beacons of light against the gloom. 

While our hearts are heavy with grief for the suffering experienced by our local family, we offer this prayer from ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá in this hour of need:

O Lord! Grant me a measure of Thy grace and loving-kindness, Thy care and protection, Thy shelter and bounty, that the end of my days may be distinguished above their beginning, and the close of my life may open the portals to Thy manifold blessings. May Thy loving-kindness and bounty descend upon me at every moment, and Thy forgiveness and mercy be vouchsafed with every breath, until, beneath the sheltering shadow of Thine upraised Standard, I may at last repair to the Kingdom of the All-Praised. Thou art the Bestower and the Ever-Loving, and Thou art, verily, the Lord of grace and bounty.

The Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Vancouver