The students should focus on learning a few more phrases of the prayer they are committing to memory, after the opening prayers have been recited.
Look at Me listen HERE
Look at Me...
Follow Me
Be as I am
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Teach the Faith...
Serve your Lord...
Love mankind...
Look at Me...
To introduce today’s quotation, you may explain the following:
Every human being was created to know God and to love Him, and we all have the spark of His love in our hearts. It is important that we feed the flame of the love of God by praying to Him daily and by serving others. And as this flame burns with greater and greater intensity, it can be felt by all those who cross our path and its light can illumine their minds. When we are so enkindled, we become like burning candles that cannot help but to give forth light. Let us memorize the following quotation:
“Verily, I supplicate God to enkindle in thy heart the fire of His love...” listen HERE.
Supplicate
1. One day, George, a most trusted servant, went to his King in need of assistance. George’s daughter was very ill, and he asked whether the King’s doctor might come to see her. George supplicated the King to send the doctor to help his daughter.
2. At school Tatiana heard about children in another part of the world who were suffering greatly because a flood had washed away all their homes. Tatiana was very concerned for her far away brothers and sisters, and that night she remembered them in her prayers, asking God to help them. Tatiana supplicated God for His assistance.
Enkindle
1. The house was cold, so Axel’s father decided to start a fire. He put large logs in the stove and lit some small twigs below. The wood soon became enkindled, and the fire warmed the room.
2. A scientist came to the school and explained to the students many interesting things about the workings of the universe. They began to ask her various questions after the talk. She had enkindled in the students a desire to know more about the world.
Thomas Breakwell was a young Englishman who lived at the turn of the 19th century. He held an important position in a cotton mill in the southern United States and spent his vacations in Europe. On his way to Europe in the summer of 1901, he met a woman on a steamship and began talking with her about spiritual subjects. When they arrived in Paris, the woman took him along to meet a friend of hers who lived in an apartment in the city and who, she knew, had similar interests. The young woman welcomed them, and the three talked for some time. Before leaving, Breakwell asked his hostess whether he might return to speak further. He was invited to come back the next morning.
When he arrived, the young woman noticed that his eyes were shining brightly and his voice was full of emotion. She asked him to be seated. Breakwell looked at her intently for a moment, and then described for her a strange experience. After he had left her home the day before, he had walked along an avenue, alone, in the warm and heavy evening air. Not a leaf stirred around him. Then, all of a sudden, a great wind came up and he could hear in that wind a voice, sweet and powerful, speaking of the coming of a new message from God.
The young woman urged him to be calm. You see, she knew of the message to which Breakwell referred. During the next three days, over the course of many hours, she told him everything she could about the Bahá’í Faith—its history and its teachings—and about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Perfect Exemplar of those teachings, who was living in the prison-city of ‘Akká, in the Holy Land.
By the end of three days, Breakwell’s heart was so filled with joy and hope that he wanted nothing other than to travel to ‘Akká and visit ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It happened that there was another young man who had already made plans to go to the Holy Land for this very purpose and who was most pleased to have Breakwell accompany him. So, a message was sent to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá requesting permission for him to come and, in a short time, they were on their way.
"My Lord, I believe, forgive me. Thy servant Thomas Breakwell."
When the two men arrived at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s home, they were taken into a room where several other men were gathered. Looking around, Breakwell became deeply troubled. There was no one in the room to whom his heart was drawn, and thinking that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá must be among those present, he feared that he had failed to recognize that Heavenly Being about whom he learned in Paris. He sat down in despair. At that moment, a door opened, and Breakwell looked up. He saw there a brilliant light, from which the figure of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá emerged. He immediately knew that his dearest wish had been fulfilled.
Breakwell spent two glorious days in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, during which the fire that had been enkindled in his heart grew stronger and stronger. When Breakwell told ‘Abdu’l-Bahá about his job at the cotton mill, where children were used as workers, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá advised him to resign from his post, which he did without hesitation. At the end of his visit, he returned to Paris, his spirit ablaze. He no longer had income from his well-paying position in the cotton mill, and he suffered greatly from illness. But these things did not dim his joy in the least. He burned like a bright candle, sharing his light with everyone he met until at last, overcome by his illness, he died. Upon his passing, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá revealed a Tablet in his honor, which includes the following verse: “O Breakwell, O my dear one! Thou hast lit a flame within the lamp of the Company on high, thou hast set foot in the Abhá Paradise, thou hast found a shelter in the shadow of the Blessed Tree, thou hast attained His meeting in the haven of Heaven.”
Choose one of the children to pretend to be the “sick patient”. Now have two other children clasp their hands (right with right, and left with left) in order to form a “chair”. The other classmates should now help the “sick friend” into the chair. Select a tree or another specific place to be the “health center”, and ask the children forming the chair to carry the “sick” child to that spot.
With a larger group, the children can be asked to form a “stretcher” instead of a chair by standing in two lines facing each other. They should bend their arms at the elbows, with each one grasping the forearms of the child across from him or her. The “sick” child should then lie on the stretcher to be carried to the “health center”.
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