Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."
-- Peace Pilgrim.
|
| Peace Messages - Sun Myung Moon |
The Value and Significance of the Family Pledge
Beloved blessed families!
Today, on this meaningful occasion, I would like to explain about the providential value and significance of the Family Pledge. It serves as Heaven’s most precious and blessed guideline, given to us for our lives.
The fact that we now have the Family Pledge is truly the greatest of all blessings. It came from Heaven as a gift to all humanity on May 1, 1994, the day when the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) was inaugurated. The Family Pledge was given when the Completed Testament Age, which brings to fulfillment the Old Testament Age and the New Testament Age, was proclaimed. It is to serve as a milestone and guiding principle, piercing through the darkness of the age before the coming of heaven, and opening a new heaven and earth in the era after the coming of heaven. It is also the blueprint for the building of God’s kingdom of peace and unity in heaven and on earth in the era of the creation of a new heaven and earth.
Father and Mother Moon, the True Parents of humankind, emerged victorious from the battles they had fought throughout their long course of indemnity that lasted forty years after Father Moon founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC) in 1954. On that foundation, we were no longer required to recite My Pledge as individuals. We were to recite and practice the Family Pledge together as true families, the basic units of triumphal entry into the kingdom of heaven.
This Family Pledge is filled with the pain and suffering of God and True Parents, and it should not be recited without tears. It is something that people should recite forever, long after they discard the mask of religion in the fallen world and attain liberation. This is because the family is the basic unit of the kingdom of heaven.
The Family Pledge is the absolute standard and constitution for the establishment of God’s kingdom of Cheon Il Guk
Ladies and gentlemen, have you ever heard of the phrase “Family Pledge” anywhere in the world? It has appeared for the first time in human history. In the beginning, God lost the true family through the Fall of the first man and woman. He had created them to be His children and the first ancestors of humankind. Consequently, as God has the providential mandate to fulfill His ideal for the creation to an absolute standard, He instituted and proclaimed the Family Pledge. It is God’s blessing to human beings that they would establish the prototype of all true families—of ideal families on earth—and return eternal joy to God. It is an essential tool for building the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven in which your families can live while directly serving and attending God.
The precondition to properly recite the Family Pledge is first and foremost to attain a state of complete mind and body unity, which is the state of “one heart, one body, one outlook and one harmony.” This means that we must reach the standard of perfecting our character through absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. Our body should fully obey the orders of our conscience, which was given to us as our first parent, teacher and owner.
Furthermore, all of our family members must perfect the basic framework of the unity of the mind and body, the unity of parents, the unity of husband and wife, the unity of parents and children, and the unity among siblings, centered on Heaven’s will. In other words, all of us are to perfect a sphere of unity in true love. Only then can we recite the Family Pledge. That is why the Family Pledge serves as the absolute standard and constitution in the creation of the kingdom of peace and unity in heaven and earth, beyond the Completed Testament Age.
From now, people will succeed in life not as individuals but as families. This means that only true model families that acquire the recognition and respect of all people can stand in a position that can lead the world. The perfection of the family is Heaven’s greatest and highest blessing, but it is also a fearsome responsibility. It is the cornerstone of the building of Cheon Il Guk. Creating true families is the shortcut to acquiring citizenship in God’s Kingdom.
Beloved blessed families, the Family Pledge is the greatest of all prayers. It is the record of True Parents’ complete victory. It is the code of law that reveals the teachings of the Completed Testament Age, the age of “justification through attendance.”
At the heart of the Family Pledge is the true family within the framework of true love. The Family Pledge serves as a bridge, connecting our lives to God. It is like an explosion of true love that completely captivates God. The Family Pledge is the energy and wisdom that brings true love to the center of the connections between the vertical and horizontal, north and south, and front and back, initiating eternal spherical motion. The Family Pledge is the key to the gates of the kingdom of heaven. The gates to the kingdom cannot be opened by a key made of gold or silver; they can be opened only by the key of a true family perfected through true love. That is why all eight parts of the Family Pledge have as a primary clause, “Our family….centering on true love.”
Ladies and gentlemen, the age of justification by attendance means the time of attending God in our lives. Wasn’t the first of the Ten Commandments revealed in the Bible about loving God?
In the era after the coming of heaven, God is revealing Himself in front of all people as the True Parent. That is why the movement that attends the True Parents represents Heaven’s authority and power, and is incomparable to any force of this fallen world. What can prevent you from living a life of attendance that enables you to observe the living God with your own eyes and to experience Him with all your senses?
For the first time since the Fall of our original ancestors, history is governed by the True Parents. The original source has emerged that allows us to return to a new world through the internal relationship with True Parents. That relationship can bring Satan to submission. It is the center through which God is to be liberated. You all should offer thanks for the amazing grace of being able to live together with the True Parents and to receive their instructions directly.
When you are completely one with True Parents, your nation, people, tribe and family can prosper. The True Parents are the embodiment and encapsulation of all glory in heaven and earth. Once you clearly understand their value, would you exchange the True Parents for all the money in the world? Their value is such that they cannot be replaced even at the price of your life.
Explanation of Each Part of the Family Pledge
1. Seek our original homeland and build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven
The first part of the Family Pledge is “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to seek our original homeland and build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, the original ideal of creation, by centering on true love.” You should know that being able to recite the Family Pledge is one of the best pieces of news in all of history.
The “ideal of creation” refers to the ideal world with God at the center. It is the ideal of creation to build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven. However, since that ideal could not be attained due to the Fall, we must achieve it through restoration. This means that we must build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, the original ideal of creation, by seeking our original homeland.
Because the family was lost due to the Fall, we must now build God’s family. This is not an individual’s task. It is rather the task of our families, the owners of Cheon Il Guk.
Centering on true love, our families must “seek our original homeland and build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, the original ideal of creation.”
The “original homeland” referred to here is the original homeland centered on families. That is why all of you must go back to your own hometown and establish God’s kingdom on earth and in heaven. Once you restore your hometown, your nation and the world will be unified naturally. Then, there will be nothing further for you to worry about.
People who have lived on earth in a unified family centering on God’s true love, where the kingdom of God on earth and the kingdom of God in heaven are one, will become a family of the heavenly kingdom. We no longer live in the age of individual salvation. Religions, and Christianity in particular, talk about the salvation of the individual, but that will not suffice. God’s will is for the salvation of the family. Restoration must occur in the family because the Fall destroyed the ideal for the family. That time has now come. In all of history, this has never before happened on earth. Finally, the family has entered the era of settlement.
It is through families that we must build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, the original ideal of God’s creation. Because we lost the family, our families must restore that kingdom. The original homeland is centered on families, not on a nation. That is why I am saying that you must return to your hometown. If you still have a family there, you must go back to your hometown and build God’s kingdom on earth and in heaven. Once we restore our hometowns, our nations and the world will naturally harmonize. The heavenly kingdom on earth and in heaven will automatically be established. This is to unfold centering on true families.
“Our family pledges to...build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, the original ideal of creation.” Here we say “build.” Why do we use that word? It is because we must create God’s kingdom. It will not come about by itself. We must build it ourselves. This current world is already hell on earth, and it is connected to hell in the spirit world. We must recreate this world and turn it around 180 degrees.
Again, it is the mission of all families who have received the Marriage Blessing from True Parents to seek the original homeland and build the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, the original ideal of creation. It is not just as individuals, but as families, that you must complete the building of God’s kingdom. This is your first pledge as blessed families.
2. Perfect the dutiful family way of filial sons and daughters, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters
The second part of the Family Pledge is “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to represent and become central to heaven and earth by attending God and True Parents; we pledge to perfect the dutiful family way of filial sons and daughters in our family, patriots in our nation, saints in the world, and divine sons and daughters in heaven and earth, by centering on true love.”
“Our family… centering on true love.” True love refers to love that appears where there is unity between mind and body, between husband and wife, and between parents and children. If you fail to practice this standard of true love, then you will surely be in trouble when you go to the spirit world.
That is how fearsome the Family Pledge is. You should always live by it. If in your family, the father were to violate even one part of the Family Pledge, then the mother and children would all be jointly responsible. The entire family would have to take joint responsibility for it. The significance of Eve’s Fall was that it brought about the Fall of Adam’s entire family.
This part of the Family Pledge also states “… by attending God and True Parents…” We human beings were originally to attend and honor God and True Parents, but we were driven away due to the Fall. As a result of the Fall, we lose the value of our existence unless we attend God and True Parents.
God is the vertical true parent and the True Parents are the horizontal true parents. We are to be born from the union of these two sets of true parents. God is the vertical parent, and perfected Adam and Eve are the horizontal parents. On the foundation of these two sets of parents becoming one, we can also achieve unity, and be connected to God and Heaven. For this reason, nothing can be accomplished unless we attend God and True Parents.
Then, what kind of family is a family that represents and becomes central to heaven and earth? It is the ideal family that God envisioned prior to the Fall of Adam and Eve. The representative and central family in heaven and on earth refers to the family that represents heaven and grows this relationship with God in expanding circles through the eight stages in both the vertical and horizontal realms on earth. What I am saying is that the family comes to the position where God representing heaven and the True Parents on earth are united perpendicularly.
At the center of such a family, you must become a filial son or daughter; in such a nation you must become a patriot; in such a world you must become a saint; and in such a heaven and earth you must become a divine son or daughter. “We pledge to perfect the dutiful family way of…divine sons and daughters. Each family member, as an individual, should be able to attain the position of a divine son or daughter. When such divine sons and daughters who are members of the same family gather together, a family of divine sons and daughters is formed. This is what we are pledging.
We are pledging to represent and become central to heaven and earth by attending God and True Parents. For this, our family must determine to fulfill the dutiful family way of filial sons and daughters in the family, patriots and virtuous women in the nation, saints in the world, and divine sons and daughters in heaven and earth—everything that Heaven desires. We are saying that we will, as parents, educate our children, educate citizens in the nation, educate saints in the world and make them qualified to become family members in the heavenly kingdom both in heaven and on earth—that is, members of families of divine sons and daughters.
That is why we say, “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to represent and become central to heaven and earth by attending God and True Parents; we pledge to perfect the dutiful family way of filial sons and daughters in our family, patriots in our nation, saints in the world, and divine sons and daughters in heaven and earth, by centering on true love.”
3. Perfect the Four Great Realms of Heart, the Three Great Kingships and the Realm of the Royal Family
The third part of the family Pledge is, “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to perfect the Four Great Realms of Heart, the Three Great Kingships and the Realm of the Royal Family, by centering on true love.”
The Four Great Realms of Heart and the Three Great Kingships would have been fulfilled had Adam and Eve not fallen. But for the Fall, they would have fulfilled these and become God’s royal family. This part of the Family Pledge refers to restoring fallen people and making them into the royal family. The families who receive the Marriage Blessing need to fulfill this mission.
Conjugal love should take place where the Four Great Realms of Heart and the Three Great Kingships are achieved. For a man and a woman to receive love from each other, they need to stand in such a position. Otherwise, they are not to love each other. Yet these realms and kingships cannot be realized without love. That is why man absolutely needs woman, and vice versa.
Blessed families should strive every day to achieve this goal. However, it cannot be fulfilled with only a theoretical faith where you think that you should be able to fulfill your goal simply because God does it in such-and-such a way. This is a practical matter and it is set right before your very eyes.
4. God’s ideal is the creation of a universal family encompassing heaven and earth
The fourth part of the Family Pledge is “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God’s ideal of creation, and perfect the world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness, by centering on true love.”
God’s ideal is that the world becomes one family, or household, under God. If those who have actualized the Four Great Realms of Heart and Three Great Kingships recite the Family Pledge, there should be only one family under God rather than two families, or many. By building the universal family encompassing heaven and earth—the ideal of God’s creation— we should establish that one family under God.
To give you an example using air, when there is a lack of air in a low pressure system, air from a high pressure system flows in and fills it up. Similarly, water in a higher place will automatically flow down to fill up a lower place. Equilibrium is the ideal.
In the world today, there are advanced nations and underdeveloped nations. In the advanced nations people have a lot, and end up discarding leftover things, whereas people in underdeveloped nations lack many things, especially food. They may even starve to death. Twenty million people die of starvation each year. Do you think that is God’s will? What the advanced nations are doing is oppressing the universe’s natural system of interaction. If this continues, the advanced nations will be unable to avoid divine punishment. Heaven will not let this go unnoticed. Already signs of judgment are appearing in various places. One of the signs is the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, and another is drug and alcohol abuse. Both free sex and homosexuality are the madness of the lowest of the human race. God detests such behavior the most; Satan, on the other hand, praises such behavior the most.
I, Rev. Moon, am leading a movement to save the tens of thousands of people who are dying of starvation and malnutrition each day in the underdeveloped nations, even if it means making people go hungry in the consumer paradise of advanced nations such as the United States. Despite disorder in the human race, the natural world is constantly trying to maintain equilibrium.
When we pledge to “build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God’s ideal of creation, and perfect the world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness” the word “freedom” here does not mean only the freedom of an individual, but the freedom, peace, unity, and happiness of all the people of this world as one family under God. It refers to a world whose people are living in happiness. That is why we should develop movements in all villages, towns and cities throughout the world. In any place of wealth, we need to set up structures through which it can be shared.
Ladies and gentlemen, a world of one universal family is a world filled with families who have received the Marriage Blessing. When you go to the spirit world, you will find people from all over the world living together. All five colors of the human race are gathered there. The question is who among these people is truly prepared with a family ideal that can unite the past, present and future? Such a person will become a central leader in the spirit world. That is why we must train for this while we are on earth. We have to receive that training on the basis of mind and body unity.
There are many people in this world who betray their conscience and act according to their body’s desires. They hoard money, commit fraud, come up with schemes, and defame others. However, money accumulated in this way will eventually strike them back in the form of a rod of judgment.
It is the same in the spirit world. No matter how learned a person may be, if he uses the knowledge he has gained for his own sake instead of for the greater good, that knowledge will come back and strike him. That person will be thrown into hell. We should live for the sake of the world centering on the ideal of one global family, God’s ideal. Yet, if we ignore the world and live only for our own sake, the world will judge us.
I have not asked you to recite the Family Pledge centering on my family. You are to pledge centering on your own families. Everyone is equal. I, Rev. Moon, will pledge representing my family, but on behalf of all families. That is why we say, “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God’s ideal of creation, and perfect the world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness, by centering on true love.”
5. Stagnation leads to death
The fifth part of the Family Pledge is “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to strive every day to advance the unification of the spirit world and the physical world as subject and object partners, by centering on true love.”
We must first think about the spirit world. It is in the position of the subject partner, and the physical world is the object partner. Do you think there are more people living in the spirit world or on earth? The population of the spirit world is far greater than the population of the earth.
The spirit world is the subject partner, yang, and the physical is the object partner, yin. In the same way, the mind is in the subject partner position and yang to the body, which is in the position of object partner, yin. The body represents the physical world and the mind the spirit world.
If we act in such a way that we do not recognize the mind and the world of the mind as the subject partner, we are bound to go to hell. If we have lived in such a way that our body has led our mind, we should now live so that our mind leads our body and subjugates it. I am saying that such a time has come.
In our daily life we should have a consciousness that the spirit world is the subject partner. Unless we reach perfection on earth—the object partner—we shall not be able to establish the foundation for perfection when we pass into the spirit world. There is a direct relationship between the two worlds. Only when the spirit world is linked to us every day, every year, throughout our entire life, it becomes our second sphere of activity and place of residence when we go there.
In other words, “the unification of the spirit world and the physical world as subject and object partners” means that the two worlds must constantly move towards oneness. To strive every day to advance this unification means to develop and progress. We are prompted to do it quickly. We must not stop. If we do, we are already falling away toward hell and death.
Stagnation leads down to hell whereas pushing forward leads to development. To sleep long hours and be lazy, gluttonous and self-indulgent are not acceptable in relation to God’s providence. We should keep ourselves busy. Life is short. Run without resting, just like me. Run even without sleeping. Only then can you be connected to the world that you hope for. How can you be connected to the world that you do not even think about? This is how oneness is brought about. We should think about both the spirit world and the physical world as partners.
6. Become a family that moves heavenly fortune
The sixth part of the Family Pledge is “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to become a family that moves heavenly fortune by embodying God and True Parents, and to perfect a family that conveys Heaven’s blessing to our community, by centering on true love.”
“Our family pledges…by embodying God and True Parents...” You are a family that embodies God and True Parents. The families that embody God and True Parents are the families that mobilize heavenly fortune. When we say that we pledge to “become a family 13 that moves heavenly fortune… [and] conveys Heaven’s blessing to our community,” we are not saying that we want to be blessed by God and enjoy a good life just for ourselves. We are saying that we are all ultimately to become part of the royal family and that everyone should be a citizen of God’s kingdom of Cheon Il Guk.
We are making a vow to become a channel of God’s blessing, sharing His blessing equally with all the people of the world. The family of God and the True Parents is one family. There is only one set of True Parents. However, since there are many blessed families throughout the world, God wants all of them to become channels that share the blessings of God and True Parents with others. You should strive to become such a family. This means that you are trying to enable everyone to receive many blessings.
7. Perfect the world based on the culture of heart, which is rooted in the original lineage
The seventh part is “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges, through living for the sake of others, to perfect the world based on the culture of heart, which is rooted in the original lineage, by centering on true love.”
In our path of faith, the most important point is not to defile the original lineage. That means that your descendants should not stain their lineage in the same way as Adam and Eve did when they fell. That is why we say, “Our family pledges… to perfect the world based on the culture of heart, which is rooted in the original lineage...”
The world of God’s heart, the world in heaven, the world on earth, and the world of True Parents’ heart are all one. That is why we say that our family pledges “to perfect the world based on the culture of heart...” This is our ideal. The culture should not be two, but one. The cultures of the fallen world are complex and varied. Without establishing the world based on the culture of heart, there is no way for us to connect to heaven on all levels, from the individual to the family, tribe, people, nation, world, and eternal world.
Without that heart, the individual, family and tribe cannot be connected. Without a world based on the culture of heart, there is no way for us to make connections from the individual up to the cosmos. The world thus far has been going up and down in a zigzag fashion, and that is why it has not yet been able to reach the final destination, even after many thousands of years. Yet in the world based on the culture of heart, we can reach that destination right away. This is possible only through true love.
8. Perfect the realm of liberation and complete freedom in the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven
The eighth part is “Our family, the Owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges, having entered the Completed Testament Age, to achieve the ideal of God and human beings united in love through absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience, and to perfect the realm of liberation and complete freedom in the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, by centering on true love.”
In your family you must bring the royal family into being by becoming a couple where each of you is united in mind and body. You should know that this is God’s ideal for the creation, the fulfillment of the Completed Testament Age. The family where the man and woman are united in true love is the beginning of kingship. Originally, Adam’s family was to be the royal family. From there, the king of the tribe, the king of the people and the king of the nation were to emerge. Then this kingship would have automatically continued on into the eternal spirit world. From the earth, it would have been connected eternally to that kingdom.
The words “Completed Testament Age” refer to our having advanced into a new age. It is the time when the world will be united, creating a peaceful world that begins with the family and progresses to the tribe, people, nation, world and even to all of heaven and earth. It represents the whole; it is not confined to the family unit. We were able to enter the Completed Testament Age only after going beyond the level of the world and that of the whole. Through the new family that perfects the Four Great Realms of Heart and the Three Great Kingships, we can go beyond the realm of the world and achieve the required model for the Completed Testament Age. When this happens the world will become one unified world—the ideal heavenly kingdom of peace.
Ladies and gentlemen! Absolute faith, absolute love, absolute obedience! These constitute God’s ideal of creation. God began creating all things based on absolute faith. He initiated His Creation for the sake of His object partners of absolute love. Absolute obedience means that there is no awareness of “self.” It is a state of absolute zero—complete nothingness. When God empties Himself and returns to nothingness, a natural and reciprocal circular motion begins. Because you give everything out and have nothing more to give, everything will come back to you. This is the origin of interaction in the universe, and the principle that everything comes back to you after you invest completely.
For this reason, you must not insist on your own way. If you do, you will come to belong to the devil. You must not let Satan use anything that comes through your five physical senses. Make it so that your eyes, nose, mouth, feet and hands are used as if they were God’s. And try to live your life based on this standard of absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience! God always has compassion for and assists such people. When you let go of yourself, God can be with you.
Ladies and gentlemen, God created you as His absolute partners of love, totally investing Himself. He created you because He needed you as His genuine object partners of love. Without having a substantial form, either in the physical world or in the spirit world, God was unable to relate to His children. That is why He had to acquire a physical form. That form is of the perfected True Parents.
God wanted object partners of love on earth that He could love. That is why He began His Creation. God created us human beings as His absolute object partners of love, and granted us the ability to reproduce so that we might live for eternity through our descendants. This is the essence of God’s creation.
The purpose of creation is God and human beings united in love
God is the root of love, the root of life, the root of lineage and the root of the kingdom of heaven on earth and the kingdom of heaven in heaven. Had Adam and Eve not fallen, God would have entered their hearts when they married and realized a loving oneness with them. God would have become the vertical True Parent, and Adam and Eve would have become the horizontal True Parents. We would have been born with the flesh and blood of these two sets of parents. Our mind would have become the vertical self and our body the horizontal self, and we would have led lives based on one heart, one body, one outlook and one harmony.
In such a way, we are to perfect the unity of our mind and body by achieving unity with God in love and thus becoming His sons and daughters. Once we are in this parent–child relationship, we become God’s princes and princesses. We can enjoy a parent–child relationship with God and inherit everything from Him. When we, as His children, become husbands and wives, and unite totally based on true love, we become a family that lives by attending God. That family becomes a base for peace and the ideal. When a man and a woman, each being one half, unite together, they become the base through which they fulfill God’s ideal love as His partners.
In other words, through the perfection of human beings as beings of infinite value through true love, God also perfects true love, and completes the world of the ideal of creation where His eternal, ideal love dwells.
In the relationship between God and Adam’s family, God was to be the first generation, Adam the second generation and Adam’s children the third generation. God was to be in the position of the grandparent, Adam in the position of the parent, and the children in the position of the sons and daughters. In such a way, when three generations are firmly secured in your families, the grandparents stand in the position of God in His kingdom.
They also are in the positions of the king and queen of the original physical world and spirit world. The parents stand in the position of the central king and queen representing the present kingdom of heaven on earth. The children, who represent the future, are in the position of princes and princesses who inherit the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven.
In this way, Adam’s family and clan were to live as the royal clan with God as its center. After their life on earth, its members were meant to go to heaven and live in the eternal world. That is the purpose that we were meant to fulfill. Heaven is where people go to after living together on earth and attending their grandfather, who represents Heaven, as if he were God, attending their parents as the king and queen of the present world, and loving their children as the future princes and princesses. Heaven is the only place where peoples’ desires, hopes and happiness are fulfilled.
The eighth part of the Family Pledge shows the way for us to live in the kingdom of heaven on earth. It is a path that is possible only through a life of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience. At the time of creation, God totally invested Himself with absolute faith and absolute love based on the standard of absolute obedience.
The conscience represents three great subject partners
Ladies and gentlemen, the conscience comes first and precedes your parents, your teachers and even God. Many people do not realize its value because the body has been dominating the conscience. That is how it is in this fallen, hedonistic world—a world in which many focus on physical pleasure and having fun. If we depend solely on money, we will become lost. We will be driven into reckless relationships of love that lead us to ruin.
We have lost the true love that was to be created from the unity of God and human beings in absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. The first people were meant to become perfect without knowing anything about the Fall. They were to create a realm of unity with God. Yet everything was lost.
That is why we must establish the realm of the unity of heaven and earth. We must dissolve all the sorrow that we caused God for not having done so. Without releasing that pain and suffering, there can be no liberation for God or for human beings. Internally and externally, I have been resolving all of that. That is why I call this the perfection of restoration. It is the completion of restoration. That is what I am proclaiming this now. It is because it must be brought to a conclusion in the right way.
Heaven’s tradition is the constitution of your family
Beloved blessed family members! The question now is how you will guard the pure and true lineage that you have received from God. The Fall occurred in the Garden of Eden, even though it was an undefiled place. It will surely not be easy to protect the pure lineage in this evil and corrupt world of sin. So, the people born in this sinful world, no matter how much they suffer, must take responsibility such that the children of future generations receive and maintain the Marriage Blessing. It is their responsibility to create a pure and pristine environment that will never again be defiled.
Consequently, your families should not be secular families immersed in old habits. What is the best way to live for the future? It is to thoroughly educate your descendants. It is also essential to live an exemplary life for the sake of your descendants. Despite difficulties during the wilderness course, the people of Israel overcame the seven tribes of Canaan. In the same way, you must also gain victory in your own battle, no matter what hardships you have to endure. Parents must plant the way of Heaven, even if they die doing so. If you live for the sake of Heaven and the True Parents, your children will be blessed with heavenly fortune and naturally come to inherit the heavenly tradition.
The people of Israel entered the land of Canaan, but later perished. Why? It is because they eventually succumbed to the existing environment and adopted the prevailing habits and customs. The Israelites were tempted by the extravagant lifestyle of the Canaanites who ate better food and enjoyed a more comfortable life than theirs. The Israelites ended up coveting power and began to place their priorities on wealth and knowledge. They even began to marry gentiles—as long as they were from rich families. In this way, they betrayed the spirit of the chosen nation and ended up losing the heavenly tradition.
The lessons we learn from the Family Pledge come from universal, cosmic principles, not from any form of individualism. We should not try to avoid the various hardships that we face in our lives. We must boldly break through our circumstances and win the victory! To do this, our families must be armed with the tradition of the Family Pledge.
It is not, however, a task for just your families, or for a single generation. You must firmly and solidly establish the heavenly tradition over at least three generations. You have the mission of establishing a lineage that secures the tradition of the chosen people from generation to generation.
You must broaden your base of true love and unite the hearts of all peoples. Light a candle, offer incense and pray to become families that can unite the hearts of all peoples. Live and die to create a bond of true love with all peoples and with heaven and earth. If you live this way, God will protect your families through all ordeals and tribulations. It is God’s desire to plant His seeds of love in such families.
Ladies and gentlemen, you must all establish the victorious tradition of a true and good family based on the Family Pledge. The life that you lead in this revolutionary era after the coming of heaven should be one of a victor. The bright light from the Pacific Rim era is illuminating your path. God, the source of true life, true love and true lineage, is with you in the homeland of the Korean peninsula and throughout the world. True Parents,
to whom God has given the Blessing of eternal value, are also guiding you on your path. Be assured that there is nothing you cannot accomplish on the path ahead!
May God’s blessings be with you and your family for eternity!
No comments:
Post a Comment