Thou hast written concerning the meeting of His Highness
Christ after the crucifixion and that some of the apostles perceived Him but
did not recognize Him; but that they did recognize Him after the breaking of
bread.
Know thou that the Messianic Spirit and the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit is always manifest, but capacity and ability (to receive it) is
more in some and less in others. After the crucifixion the apostles had not in
the beginning the capacity and ability of witnessing the Messianic reality. For
they were agitated. But when they found firmness and steadfastness their inner
sight became opened, and they saw the reality of the Messiah as manifest. For
the body of Christ was crucified and vanished, but the Spirit of Christ is
always pouring upon the contingent world, and is manifest before the insight of
the people of assurance.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha ('Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, vol. 1')
