The Preparation of the Bride

From True Parents' Lives and the Providence by the History Committee

True Mother was born on February 10, 1943, at 4:30, AM at her maternal grandparents' house in Shineui Village in South P'yong-an Province, -- as the only child of her father Seung-woon Han and her mother Soon-ae Hong.

Her father was a schoolteacher and an active member of Rev. Yong-do Lee's New Jesus Church. Mother's mother was a Presbyterian when she was young. Later, however, she became a member of the New Jesus Church, Seong-do Kim's Holy Lord Church and the "Inside the Belly Church" under Heo Ho-bin.

Seung-woon Han and Soon-ae Hong were married on March 5, 1934, while they were both still members of the New Jesus Church. In February 1943, after nine years of marriage, their daughter Hak-ja was born. She was raised in her maternal grandparents' home. Her grandfather, Yu-il Hong, was from Namyang and her grandmother, Won-mo Cho, was from Yongbyon; both were devout Christians.

According to True Mother, Grandfather Hong was a tall, handsome, friendly man. She has said that when she met True Father for the first time, she did not find him strange or difficult to relate to because in his general demeanor he resembled Grandfather Hong. Won-mo Cho ran a sewing shop. She participated in the protest for Korean independence that began on March 1, 1919, while carrying True Mother's mother, then five-year-old Soon-ae Hong, on her back. Soon-ae Hong had been born on March 18, 1914, in Jongju, North P'yong-an Province. Soon-jeong Hong, her younger brother, was her only sibling.

True Mother remembers living in her grandparents' house. "It was not very countrified, but there was a hillock behind the house and a brook flowing nearby. It gave off a feeling of comfort and warmth, reminiscent of a hen brooding its chicks. Our backyard was a cornfield cultivated for the family's use, and I remember the corn grew very tall. Father's hometown and my hometown are situated on opposite sides of a river and some thirty kilometers apart. When we went to visit Father's hometown in December 1991, we passed over my hometown in a helicopter. My village, however, looked completely different, because there was an apartment complex where it had been. It had been urbanized more than Father's hometown had."

There had been seven generations of only sons born in True Mother's maternal lineage. Grandmother Cho, Soon-ae Hong, and True Mother (Hak Ja Han) were then born as only daughters in each subsequent generation, establishing the foundation for the bride. When True Mother was about four years old, Heo Ho-bin's mother blessed her, calling her "the one who will become the bride of Heaven."

True Mother, her mother and maternal grandmother came to South Korea, escaping from communist North Korea at the risk of their lives. This was a year or so before the start of the Korean War. They were able to find Soon-ae Hong's younger brother,Soon-jeong Hong, who was in the Korean army. He helped them find a place to stay in Hyochang-dong, Seoul, where True Mother entered elementary school.

When the Korean War broke out, they found safety in a camp for military dependents in the southern provinces. They returned to Seoul after the city was retaken on September 28, 1950, but they were forced to go south again, to the city of Daegu, when the United Nations' Forces retreated on January 4, 1951. At the time, they met Seok-cheonm Jeong (whom they had known from the Holy Lord Church) and lived as neighbors of his family for the next four years.

Thereafter, they stayed on Jeju Island for nine months, where True Mother advanced to the fifth grade of elementary school. After receiving a letter from Soon-jeong Hong, they moved back to the mainland, up to Chuncheon, where Mother finished her primary school education.

In April 1956, Mother entered Seonjeong Middle School in Seoul. Graduating in March 1959, she entered St. Joseph's Nursing School, but did not complete her studies owing to events that would overtake her the following year.

In February 1960, at the age of seventeen, Hak Ja Han was confirmed to become Father's bride and the True Mother. A month later, at 4 AM on March 27, an engagement ceremony was held at the old headquarters church and on April 11, True Parents' Holy Wedding took place at the same location.

Father's Explanation from True Parents' Life Story

In order for True Mother to be born, an only child in three generations needed to lay down a foundation of having served the coming Lord with distinction.

Thus, for the providence, she needed to be an only daughter who was not supported by others and who lived alone. People talk about seven generations of only sons, don't they? The reason an only child was born in successive generations is so that Satan's stained bloodline was not left behind. For that reason, the grandmother was an only daughter, as was Mother herself. Three generations are drawn together. Mother suffered ordeals as the third generation of only daughters. It's not hard to imagine that with her grandmother and mother being away most of the time, immersed in religious activities, that Mother was neither well-clothed nor well-fed, is it?

Everyone needs to understand this: Walking the path of absolute obedience and submission to God with single-minded devotion without any regard for their own physical and spiritual suffering, they disregarded the affections of the human world and devoted their hearts and souls to connect to the way of heavenly affection.

For the sake of their religious faith, noble people like Grandmother Hong packed their bags and chose the historic path of suffering to receive the Lord, casting away other men and women; therefore, Mother, too, has a history of having undergone such training. That's very simple, isn't it? If a husband is zealously treading the path of the providence, the wife needs to come from a family that would enable her to wish for her husband to work even more zealously. That's how you can think about this, and that is how I came to choose Mother.

In True Mother's case, three generations have made preparations to receive the Returning Lord. How much did members of other Protestant churches and of the Catholic Church oppose them? How much were they persecuted for having founded the New Jesus Church centering on Rev. Yong-do Lee? Connecting divine history and the core believers of Korea, Mother was blessed by them all.

She had been educated as a central member of an organization preparing to receive the Returning Lord. Thus, when they fled to safety, Mother prepared herself to become the bride and received blessings from the founder of her church, who had prepared her to receive her groom. All those blessings have come true now. Though there was an age difference of twenty-three years between us, I had undergone ordeals for twenty-three years because Heaven had prepared such things on the foundation of True Mother's having received those blessings.

That is why, historically, everyone in Mother's clan was prepared to serve the new Lord. In the time of her grandmother, Mother received blessings from Seong-do Kim and Heo Ho-bin. Mother's mother took her to that organization when she was four years old, and Mrs. Heo blessed Mother. It was then that the mission was passed on to her, though she did not realize it. When I met Mother in 1960, I became aware of that fact. Everything that had been prepared by God had come together in 1960, all at once.

The endeavors leading up to that moment cannot even be described. Walking this path alone, away from my brothers and sisters, relatives and companions, I have passed through all kinds of experiences, while living only on raw food. Up to the end, however, I did not give up my core principles, and thus laid the foundation whereon I could meet Mother.

Wonderful of character and disposition Mother has a pretty face, so she would have been subject to all kinds of temptations. Since it would be inadvisable to have her encounter them, Heaven arranged for her to lead a life of divine isolation. I have heard that in her school days, she wanted never to marry but to enter a convent, plant an orchard and live there alone.

When you see her, you see that Mother is quite a decorous woman. When she is sitting quietly and docilely, she exudes an internal character that calls for respect more than that accorded anyone else.

She has a gentle character. After she met me, she was trained to observe her surroundings carefully, which is why she can do this well now. By nature she is very modest. When she went to and from Cheongpa-dong, she followed only one path. Always, she would come and go by that one path. I watched her carefully. The first time, the second time, and the times after that, when she came and went she always followed the same path. Seeing that she always followed the right path, I thought to myself, Aha!

I was also looking for the representative woman who possessed love for others by tradition, and I chose Mother because she fitted the part in every aspect.

My eyes are not that clouded. It is not because of her beautiful face that she is so wonderful. She has a beautiful face because she has a beautiful heart. Because her heart is beautiful, her voice is beautiful and her features are graceful. [Applause]

Even onstage, she is a natural. The first time she sang onstage was when she was sixteen years old and a junior in high school. After she sang, she became known for her singing. No matter who was in front of her, whether I or someone else, she was always bold onstage, like a champion.

Though she looks docile, she has grit. You can see that right away when you see her hands. Though her face looks gentle, her hands are thick and bold. She doesn't waver even when she stands at a podium. That is why I have chosen her as Mother. At the time I thought to myself, She may not look it now but just wait and see.

I intended to marry any woman; I thought to myself that if she is devoted to the providence and ready to welcome it 100 percent for me, even the plainest woman would suit me. That is how I ended up marrying the most wonderful person. [Applause and cheers] Mother says she married me without knowing what was happening to her. She couldn't have avoided it even if she had wanted to; it was almost as if she had been bewitched by something.

A seventeen-year-old bride

Without the providence, I could not have met Mother. The person destined to be Mother should not be in her twenties; in fact, she should not be over eighteen years of age, not even by a day. Because Eve fell when she was sixteen, the connection is made over three years to the age of nineteen. In the fallen realm, teenagers are troublemakers, but from the Korean viewpoint, in the secular world, the younger a girl is, the closer she is to the foundation of chastity.

Mother herself needed to be obedient, like a lamb, centering on love. In all respects, she needed to find the condition by which she could be absolutely obedient. Therefore, she needed to utterly sacrifice herself for her husband. In other words, she needed to be absolute in loving her husband. She could not have made comparisons, saying, He is inferior to my father. He is inferior to my brother.

Instead, she had to think of her husband as being superior to any man on earth, be it her teacher, her grandfather, or anyone else. This is because Eve had seen no man other than Adam in the Garden of Eden, and thus she had had no room to think about any other man, or to entertain any other thoughts.

Am I not twenty-three years older than Mother? I am old enough to be her father. Who on earth marries a woman young enough to be his daughter? True love, however, transcends age. In true love, a million-year-old grandfather does not think about the fact that he is so old. He can't remember it, because everything is new and fresh, and wonderful as it is, and harmonious and unified. Therefore, true love is not a bad thing. Though there is a big age difference between Mother and me, if we were to go right to the world of true love, do you think they will tell us, Come back in twenty-three years? Such things don't pose a problem.

Though I was forty years old, it was my cherished hope to marry a young woman for the sake of Heaven and to become a devoted husband. Had I married a woman who had lived as she pleased until the age of forty, how could I have become a true husband who could receive the respect of that old wife throughout my life? For this reason, I married Mother when she was young.

And by what could I connect to the realm of heart of those under forty? By setting her up in my stead, I was able to come down to her position and climb back up together with her, and thus make the connection to the realm of heart on the family level while in my forties. All men and women who are still adolescents can be connected in a like manner.

Moreover, I had to have had twelve children in twenty years, for only then could two thousand years be indemnified. That would have been a difficult task even for someone who had a strong back and firm hips and who was able to give birth every year. Older women would have had enormous trouble doing so.

Competition between bride candidates

When we were about to receive Mother, everyone said, Oh, we are going to receive the mother of the universe. Our teacher is approaching the age in which he can receive Mother.

I was approaching the age of forty, and there was a constant clamor from three years before that. All those who were related to beautiful or accomplished women took notes of their particulars and even dragged the women in, described me and said that if all goes well, I would become their husband. There were all kinds of strange things happening at the time.

That is why many women, from those in their seventies all the way down to young teenagers, said they had received revelations from the spirit world telling them that they were my bride. That could not be helped, however. [In the spirit world] a hundred years is the same as ten thousand, a hundred thousand or ten million years. All kinds of women are included in that range because the Jeong Seong done by all women for God is united and ripens as one fruit. This is why they all received those revelations.

I had to be such a man. For the first time in history, this man made his appearance, and then all kinds of women appeared and were mobilized to become his bride. Such a man cannot even be found among the kings of old.

In the atmosphere of the time, what rumors would not have spread? If I seemed closer to someone, people said I would marry a daughter in that person's family.

Those who were communicating with the spirit world received revelations, in prayer, that a particular woman would be the bride. They told others about it. All sorts of rumors went round. Many women who were rich, well-educated and born in grand families thought with confidence that they would be chosen.... You can imagine how fierce the psychological warfare was under such circumstances. Spiritual bullets must have flown back and forth between them on many occasions.

Inheritance of the woman's heart in eight stages

From God's point of view, all women in the world are united. He sees them as one. Since Adam and Eve fell, in front of the Adam representing the entire world, all women in the world are in the same position as Eve was, be they old or young. Under the circumstances, a bridge must be laid down from the era of old women, eighty and above, a bridge of flowers and of love. By guiding them through the word, raising them as daughters and bringing them forward, everything in the east, west, north and south should be brought under control and a bridge built across them.

For this to take place, many women need to climb up, treading over such situations. As they climb up, they need to take all lines of love, absorbing the sap in the process. Thus, they need to receive the heavenly seal of victory acknowledging the fact that they have attained the original position in which they can stand in front of God. In short, they need to be liberated. Every drop of the ditch water needs to be purified. Unless such rags are sewn up, there is no bridge by which Mother can come across.