A Momentous Year

Notes from Father's speech at the Three-Couple Blessing Ceremony

It has been God's hope and dream to see a ceremony such as the one we held today. God would have held this kind of wedding for Adam and Eve had they grown to maturity. This is a historic occasion that stands in the center of the heart of the ideal that God envisaged at the time of the Creation. You must keenly feel that this is the first such ceremony since the Creation...

The first seven-year course is for perfecting the foundation of the conjugal relationship. It leads to the perfection of the foundation on the family level; thus it applies to Mother as well. Some aspects of her personality will differ from aspects of mine, but a time will come when we'll begin to be in accord with each other. We need to cut away aspects that cause discomfort and start fresh with those we feel comfortable with. That's what the seven-year course is all about. In short, in the first seven-year course, Mother and I have to set conditions on which we can become one centered on the providence.

We need to be united in faith. If the wife interferes with what her husband does and is against his going the way he is going, she will be accused. Next, we need to be united in body, that is, in substance. Then we need to be united in love. Centered on God, we need to become one in faith, in substance and in love.

Therefore, you need to know that during that seven-year course, I rectified all the internal and external conditions on which Satan could accuse my family and I triumphed. From the viewpoint of the heart, I completely established the conditions to have a family that Satan could never accuse. In doing so, there were many complicated issues, internal problems, and so on. The foundation of the unity of my heart and Mother's is also what can bring together all the things in the world that are divided from each other. I had to attempt that, because we had to stand on the foundation of heart that can unite the world.

True Parents' family-level cross

Only when the seven thousand years of history are brought to a conclusion can we go beyond the realm of the Sabbath and start fresh with the number eight. This is to be done in the first seven-year course, and not by anyone else. During this time, I am meant to lay a foundation for my family. After the Blessing Ceremony, that is, the Holy Wedding, my family was not a happy one, because it has to bear the family level cross. Until a banner of victory is held high, proclaiming that a family has borne the family level cross and triumphed, there is no path for your families to follow, because yours are the secondary families.

Centering on my family, I have expanded the ground for the four-position foundation. As that ground expands, others can be restored. When you consider the names of the True Children, who are right here, you'll see they are all related to the history of restoration.

All my children need to be born in the midst of this, be obedient to Mother and unite. During this time, many things will happen in my family that will need to be indemnified. The children themselves cannot grow up in safety during this period when many unexpected accidents will take place in my family.

Also, Mother and I promised each other that no matter what mortifying and vexatious things happen between us, we would not show any sign of that in front of members and cause them to say things like, "Oh! Father and Mother have had a fight."

In other words, no matter how many children we have and how many tears she sheds, she must never give any indication that we have had a conflict. Neither should I, for that matter. When the children come inside a room where Mother is... The children are gods, little gods. In regard to love, they are closer to God. They need to be absolutely obedient. When they call, Mom! she should answer her smiling children, Yes?

Though I have not been able to take care of my children, with the four older ones, I went into their rooms every night, even after midnight, to kiss them good night and to pray for them. Though I failed to guide them in every way as their parent, I prayed for them morning and evening because I have a responsibility to keep them safe.

Unless the parents, the children and all created things are united, they cannot reach God's realm of love. That's why I trained Mother for seven years, why Mother and our children were persecuted and why there was so much commotion. They were going through that course.

Through the Fall, the man failed to fulfill his responsibilities as the husband and as the son, and the creation was lost. That all needs to be indemnified internally, which is why I have undergone this process and indemnified it all by designating the Day of All Things, Children's Day and Parents' Day. I did this all within those seven years. Thus, at the end of the seven years, I was able to establish God's Day and cross over the mountain of indemnity.

Three couples engaged before the Holy Wedding

What is the central issue in restoration? In the providence centering on Noah, his three sons were important. In 1960, when Parents' Day was going to be established, it was necessary to establish three families like those of Noah's three sons. By doing so, it became possible to save the spirits of the people who had died during the period from Adam to Noah and to establish the family of Jacob on the foundation of this victory.

These three families represent the families of Adam, Noah and Abraham. They represent the restored Cain-type families. They also represent the Cain-type children in the age of the Second Coming and replace the disciples who had opposed Jesus in Jesus' time. Therefore, they must be in the position of restored archangels by attending the Second Coming of the Lord. These three families were in the form of having restored the archangel.

Jesus represented Adam, and the Second Coming of the Lord represents Jesus. Therefore, the official rule is that unless the Second Coming has three absolutely obedient children of faith, he cannot achieve the status of the True Parent. He needs to have three disciples who will be loyal to him and follow him through persecution, even at the risk of their lives. In April 1960, I restored three such disciples that I had found.

Chosen as the resurrected figures of Cain, Abel and Seth in Adam's family, they established the relative condition upon which Father and Mother could go beyond the level of engagement and substantially become parents through the Holy Wedding. The fact that the parents and three children in Adam's family, who have always been a source of grief to God, could finally unite, and moreover, that the first time it had been achieved on earth in history was in Korea, is truly historic. It can even be said that the fortune of a new future began to spread from that moment in Korea.

Blessing three couples

Before my Holy Wedding in 1960, three couples out of the thirty-six couples were engaged, and after our Holy Wedding, I blessed them.

You may know that in the course of the providence of restoration, there must be parents at their children's wedding. That is why the purpose of the six-thousand-year history of God's providence of restoration also lay in first setting the central condition, and then blessing His children from then on. He has yearned for such a moment to come for a very long time. Besides, in order to hold a wedding, the children must first go through a ceremony that enables them to stand in front of God as His children. In other words, a ceremony is needed to confirm that they are His children. They need to receive the blessing from the parents and stand in front of God. Next comes the reading of the vows and affirmation of the vows. Then they are blessed, and the first part of the ceremony is over. At the end of the ceremony, the brides and bridegrooms will make their entrance here wearing holy robes.

A position determined by principles

The first of the three couples, who represent the thirty-six couples, is Kim Won-pil and his wife. History cannot establish just anyone in that position. Unless a specific background based on a specific program had been set up in the spiritual world, he couldn't have been established in the position of the firstborn son. Kim Won-pil was able to stand in that position. In the second position is Eu Hyo-won, and Kim Young-whi is in the third. You know them as Won-pil, President Eu and President Kim, don't you? I didn't appoint Won-pil president of the church. Why not? Won-pil himself may be aware of this, but he has to be in Adam's position.

The great thing about President Eu is that though he has weak legs and is deficient in many areas, he has been absolutely obedient to the providence and to me. He has practiced absolute obedience. Won-pil, too, always absolutely obeys what I say. How about Kim Young-whi? He has a certain innocence. They need to unite, and once they unite on the individual level, their families also need to unite. Unless these three families unite, the individual, the family and the tribe will all suffer on their account, and they will also cause trouble in my family. That is why these three couples are very important.

I teach the principles by which people can go to God's world of heart. Until now, I have ignored President Kim's child. I've never embraced his child, even once. That is because I wanted to embrace the blessed sons and daughters of God in a position of their being loved by the world. Won-pil also has a daughter, whom I've never shown an interest in.

I have never embraced the late President Eu's son because that is the way of the Principle, and I need to live according to the Principle. If someone is the president of the Korean church, even foreigners should want to embrace his young children; they should be loved by everyone in the world. Only then can I love them.

Loving my children in accordance with God's will

I could not love Sung-jin1 in a proper way. Before the Holy Wedding in 1960, I could not pay his school expenses. I could not even buy him a book. You know this well, because you have seen it. If I could not love my spiritual children more than my own children, I would not have been able to advance the providence of restoration. Also, I had to make my little boy, Hee-jin,2 live in members' homes, one after another. As his father, mortifying pain is in my heart over this.

On the other hand, I devoted all my sweat, tears and blood for the sake of Unification Church members. Even when I was tortured in prison, I prayed for them, allowing my own children to be sacrificial offerings. I devoted all my heart and sincere effort in this way. This is the Unification Church's philosophical outlook.

I could not stay with Sung-jin or Hee-jin before the Three-Couple Blessing Ceremony. However, now that the three families have established the standard of unity with Father, I could go out and bring back Sung-jin and Hee-jin with Heaven's blessing. After giving the blessing to the three couples and then visiting the United States, I have brought Sung-jin and Hee-jin to live in the same house.

The three years before the first seven-year course began

In 1960, too, I sent out members to their posts, telling them to live servants' lives in the same way that I had to live a prison life for three years. I had to establish the condition of having achieved victory in restoration through indemnity by undergoing life in prison. Do you know what kind of time that three years was? It was a time of looking for your lost children in Satan's world and restoring them by shedding sweat, tears and blood.

In those days, members could not go to school. They gave up their schooling and jobs. They gave up everything. If they had three sets of clothing, I instructed them to live with only one. I lived that way as well.

I began fasting on my birthdays. I did not eat on my birthday for three years. And when I ate, I did not eat more than three different side dishes at a meal. Therefore, our Unification Church members must fast on their birthday for three years. In order to pay total indemnity, go to the world of perfect love and achieve happiness, you must be willing to follow a paradoxical path, one that seems abnormal to people in the secular world.

Though my body was in the headquarters church on a comfortable bed, my heart was in torment. On a blustery night, with a cold northern wind howling and cold snow drifting down outside, my young sons and daughters were shedding tears on the brink of death, and I had driven them to it. I have prayed until now that I, a teacher of others, will never become a false man.

Forty-day enlightenment witnessing, 1960

During the next three years, the apostles on earth and the apostles in heaven need to combine their efforts to fulfill their responsibilities. In the past, good spirits wrought miracles only when all the right conditions were met, but that will not be the case from now on. During this time, all spirits need to be mobilized.

This enlightenment campaign aims to awaken the external intellect, and the Divine Principle is needed to develop the internal intellect. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out an educational campaign based on both.

The 30 million Korean people are in constant struggle, not knowing which way to go. You need to become leaders of this forlorn people. You need to step forward in front of the Korean people, who are shedding blood and sweat in the world of death and begging for mercy, and break the wire netting of death off them with your iron rod of life and shout, Friends, brothers and sisters, I am here!

And on the day when you can uphold the parent -- child relationship and establish the relationship of brotherhood, and thus form a tribe and a race and appear in front of God as His citizens, Heaven's sovereignty will be restored and the sorrow and grief tearing at God's heart will be lifted.

Everyone, are the clothes you are wearing precious to you? Discard them! Do you have wealth? Cast it away! You need to know that those very things can become the bait by which Satan will try to lead you away from the path toward God.

If you can become a people that loses sleep in their work to provide even an inch of land or of clothing to those who stand for the sake of goodness, regardless of the tears and blood this people has to shed in the process, they will govern the world.

Until no we have worked for ourselves as individuals, but from now on, you need to work for your people and the world. To do so, you need to shed more sweat, tears and blood Let us make a new resolution and a new pledge. Let our hearts overflow with love for God. Let us shed our sweat for the land tears for the people and humanity and blood for God. Since our bodies and minds are not ours but our Heavenly Father's, let us dedicate our bodies and minds for the Korean people and for all people on earth, who have nowhere to turn to and no one to trust.

If we don't begin now, we will never get another opportunity. You need to go forward now, while you still have me to drive you on from behind. You need to begin while I'm her and set the condition of having done something. I am telling you to do this because I know what should be done now. We will make history in three years and if you have your name included in it, innumerable people will come to pay their respects to you, and they will make barefoot pilgrimages to places associated with our work.

Father visits members during the enlightenment witnessing campaign

July 30 -- August 19, 1960 (twenty-one days)

I can still vividly recall the time I toured Korea in 1960, after I sent you all out to witness. Nowadays, when I go to visit a place, quite a number of people line up to greet me. However, I remember how members looked at that time, fretful, standing in the midst of a lonely, blustery place, looking like one person guarding the world of the dead, or holding the flag of Heaven promising life, and who still bowed their heads to me in greeting and prayed with all their hearts. God makes a heaven-and-earth relationship with such a person. When you think about it, you can see that you form a stronger bond of heart with God when you are in a difficult situation.

When I toured Korea for twenty-one days, I thought that though the roads I traveled were rough country roads then, a time would come when they would become highways for cars carrying numerous people. I prayed that our Unification Church members' hands would build the best road in Korea.

Though innumerable people after me need to follow the path I am on, even when I traveled back and forth over a distance of seven hundred miles, I did not think I was doing it just once but that I was destined to do it constantly. Therefore, you too need to be resolved to shed more sweat than others, to travel more than others, to work harder than others and to continue to do so constantly.