A Day When We Welcome the Blessing
by Rev. Sun Myung Moon
April 12, 1986. Seoul (Korea)
Edited by esgd
33 minutes
Today we have before us two ceremonies — engagement and changing of blood lineage. These are indemnity ceremonies to set a condition through which we can be reborn by True Parents. Rebirth is necessary because we were born into a satanic world. A woman fell first, so a woman must be restored first, and then a man must be reborn. Through the Holy Wine Ceremony we pass through this process internally. Forty days after the Blessing, there is a ceremony by which we are reborn in the external sense. Both are ceremonies of indemnity. Through them, we go beyond the standard of fallen Adam and Eve to the standard of spiritual completion. After a man and a woman preserve a position centering on heaven, they can connect this standard of love to the love between husband and wife, and their marriage is established.
The other day, I gave the following explanation in England: A woman’s beauty is not limited to her face. People generally decide whether a woman is beautiful just by looking at her face. But a face is only part of the body. We have to look at the whole. The face is the third place to look at. We have to see a woman from the front, from the side, and with regard to the whole person, such as her arms and legs, her way of walking, her voice, etc. Likewise, a man’s good looks involve much more than his face. Therefore, you should not say that your wife’s face is good or bad. Many beautiful women are deficient in quality of spirit, and a woman of virtue and good fortune may not be beautiful. A woman whose beauty lies only in her face seldom keeps it after two or three children. It is always interesting to see whether such a woman can retain her beauty after having children.
There are various ways of analyzing couples. Just as each person has a different face, likewise, people’s fortunes are different. Each person’s destiny in life is different. If a man’s fortune is bad, he can compensate for it with his wife’s good fortune. Likewise, if a woman’s fortune is bad, her husband’s good fortune can balance it. Therefore, matching a couple is like creating a level area out of a mountain and a valley. Many things can be cultivated on a plain — grains, fruits, vegetables, etc. This helps us understand that all the many external aspects of a husband and wife need not fit together immediately.
Before you receive the Blessing, you have to see the historical significance of your life. God’s dispensation has passed through a sacrificial history of thousands of years to bring you salvation. In God’s providence there were many prophets, many pioneers, and many religious people who made countless sacrifices. All of them were an expression of God’s love for you in order to let you stand as a victor today. The history of the Unification Church has been the same. The reason why I worked so hard was to open the way of the Blessing to all people, as well as to pioneer the path for full salvation. God has labored tirelessly for the sake of each one of us. We should feel so much gratitude! Even if we offer our entire lives, we can never repay all the debts we owe God.
But if we offer everything, God will welcome us as victors in the eternal spiritual world, the world of glory. This is an awesome thing. So please be aware that you are the ones who are bearing such a historic responsibility. You are called upon to save the 4 billion people in the world today by yourselves. In order for you to occupy such a responsible position, God has made sacrifices, and each religion has been toiling hard. However, such historical sacrifices will all be rewarded if we embrace and fulfill our responsibilities in faith. You must clearly understand that you have such a central mission. Therefore, if you move, history moves, Japan moves, and the world moves as well.
There is another thing to consider. Because Adam and Eve fell, they created the conditions that caused their descendants to shed much blood and to suffer a miserable history. But you must be different. Whatever you do, you should never pass on sins to your descendants. Rather, you should leave them with a new dimension of goodness. Whatever hardships you may endure in your life, try to go forward with gratitude. Harboring anxiety or complaint is a serious matter. You have a mission to liberate three ages — the past, the present, and the future. You must leave a thoroughly victorious tradition so your descendants do not inherit a tradition of indemnity. The blessed position has a most serious significance. The entire human race, past and present, will come to rely on us. It is so inexpressibly valuable that the Messiah has come again and established the position of bride and bridegroom to confer the Blessing.
The responsibility of the child of a great father is to inherit everything from him. Both of them stand on the same central ground, but the scope of their lives is different. The central point that I am standing on and the point you as blessed members will be standing on is the same. There are not two points. Please remember this. I have a world-level mission and you have an individual-level mission — but you can expand its scope freely by striving toward the clan level, tribal level, and national or higher levels. You should not put limits on yourself because you are Japanese. The center is the same and the formula for success is the same, in both my family life and your family life, in my clan-level life and your clan-level life, and our various modes of life on the tribal, national, world and cosmic levels. The only difference is that you must become a clan Messiah. I should speak at this point about Home Church, but I don’t have time for that now.
I have not yet completed the victorious sphere on the world level. I am still fighting and using various strategies at this time. When you reach the world level, you can do everything in the biggest way, so please learn to do things thoroughly where you are now. Please be aware that this is the position you will have in the future. Do you understand? Remember how serious your mission is if you are laying the foundation for the Heavenly Kingdom and erecting the pillars for the temple of world goodness. Are your pillars of the best quality? Can they become the pillars that set the standard of goodness? If not, you have no spare time to take a rest or get into arguments or command others imperiously.
Man is born for the sake of woman, and woman is born for the sake of man. If you assert your ego, God leaves your marriage; if you respect your spouse, God will come in. A couple should walk together as two legs in harmony, balancing each other, not as one unsteady leg.
Have you understood the standard that is demanded by the Blessing? Your position and mine in relation to that standard are not the same. You are not yet standing on that standard and have not received the inheritance on the family level. What do you have to do in order to stand in that position? You must overcome Satan. Have you overcome Satan? If all of Japan opposed you, I think many of you would run away.
In front of God’s love, we must be absolutely unchangeable. God is a unique, absolute, and eternal being. Those who speak about the sphere of God’s heart, as we do, must stand on such a heartistic position. Those who join the Unification movement and then leave and return at their whim are not trustworthy. Only when we seek the absolutely unchangeable, eternally immutable sphere of God’s love can He begin to live with us. To do this, we have to develop an unchanging and eternal self that can subjugate Satan. You are not standing in that position yet. To achieve it you must inherit my victorious standard.
The Engagement Ceremony
In Japan, there are huge buildings. The person whose name appears on the title papers owns the building. You can become the owner of the building through just a piece of paper. For you to inherit everything from me is similar. I achieve all the victories of the restoration of the cosmos and build a wonderful building on the world level, draw up the title papers, and then transfer them to you through the Blessing. It’s simple, isn’t it? All of you here are the owners of the building I have erected. Your position comes just like that. It is as though you are all now standing at the same starting line on an athletic field. Try to run as hard as you can. Surely the central tribe of Japan will spring from you. By ourselves we have no value; we simply preach and try to live the Principle. Because of our inheritance, Satan can do nothing. Today, we will go through the ceremony of transferring the “title papers” according to the Principle.
We receive the Blessing upon the promise that we will guard it and leave it as a treasure to our descendants unto thousands of generations. If you violate it, your clan will be in trouble. Therefore, the key point is how to maintain the pure blood lineage that heaven is now bestowing on us. To do this, we have to live with sincerity and heart. Adam and Eve fell in the pure Garden of Eden; therefore, a crucial issue is how to keep ourselves pure in this sinful world. We face enormous problems, even if we work hard and sacrifice ourselves. We must quickly prepare the social environment so that coming blessed children are not defiled. This is my concern, and we must hurry.
There are two ceremonies through which to inherit the pure blood lineage. The first is the Engagement Ceremony. Why do we have the Engagement Ceremony? Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden were in the period of engagement. Today, their fallen descendants have multiplied and cover the world. The Blessing takes place in such an environment. Our eyes are distracted by so many men and women in the world.
The Garden of Eden contained only Adam, Eve, and the archangel. The archangel fell and became Satan. Accordingly, we have to gain victory over Satan. But to gain such victory, we must know what kind of being he is. Satan failed to unite with God, and instead devoured love centered on himself. But we are different. We practice love centering on God.
All men and women in the secular world are in the position of fallen Adam and Eve, sons and daughters of Satan. Therefore, the problem is how to transform such men and women into God’s sons and daughters. It is done by the Principle, which teaches that when the perfect Adam arrives, the perfect Eve is restored.
When the perfect plus appears, the perfect minus automatically manifests itself. This is the principle of creation. When someone becomes a perfect minus, the perfect plus will appear. Notice that the population of men and women in the human race is about the same. The wisdom of heaven and earth decreed that. Likewise, air circulates freely, in order to maintain atmospheric balance. When the perfect man is born, the perfect woman is supposed to be born. When the Bible says that a woman was made from Adam, it is symbolic of this point.
You are fallen Adam and Eve. Because of the fall, you are advancing toward the realm of perfection from a fallen condition. There is no way to overcome the sphere of indemnity except through the perfected Adam. This is the Principle. This perfected Adam must be the substantial object of God’s love. He must stand on that standard. The Lord of the Second Advent comes in order to realize this position, so he is the perfect Adam. He comes as the magnet to attract all people, centering on love. A minus magnet is pulled by a plus magnet, even if somebody demands that it stop. A minus magnet even has the power to attract a plus magnet.
The principle of restoration is the same. Adam and Eve fell after their engagement. Therefore, after engagement, people must symbolically pass through the dispensation of restoration. We hold the Holy Wine Ceremony to create the perfect man through a woman who has been reborn as the perfect minus, or perfect Eve. The Holy Wine Ceremony sets a condition for spiritual restoration. A woman is reborn spiritually and then Adam is reborn spiritually through her.
Forty days after the Blessing there is an indemnity ceremony for substantial restoration that ordinarily takes three days. The 40 days is an interval of historical indemnity. In the formation and growth periods people do not have the authority to make restoration centering on love. Only after entering the completion period is that possible. Therefore, Adam’s era and the next are the ages of failure. As a result, people could not fully inherit the sphere of God’s love on the formation level (Old Testament age) or the growth stage centering on Jesus. Yet only by inheriting the sphere of God’s love on the formation and growth stages can people enter the sphere of the Completed Testament age. The Indemnity Ceremony has the significance of symbolically accomplishing this inheritance. The first day is to restore the Old Testament age, or fallen Adam. The second day is to complete Jesus’ mission and restore the New Testament age. In the Completed Testament age, represented by the third day, the man stands as the bridegroom in the place of Jesus and recreates the bride. Then, for the first time, he can assume his proper position as a restored Adam. Restoration requires such concrete and specific indemnity conditions.
The Holy Wine Ceremony
Jesus said of the bread and wine, “This is my body . . . This is my blood.” The holy wine has a similar meaning. Through the Holy Wine Ceremony we set the condition through which we become one with True Parents. A person who has become one with True Parents cannot become one with Satan. For eternity, he is cut off from Satan. From now on, you must have the determination to create the new ideal Heavenly Kingdom as restored Adams and Eves in the eternal Garden of Eden.
Why do we hold the Holy Wine Ceremony? Adam and Eve were living in the period of engagement before their fall. So we must restore that period without any possibility of accusation from Satan. If Adam and Eve had been blessed in marriage by God and had loved each other, God’s will would have been completed. But they could not fulfill this. The order of love was reversed when people began to love themselves more than God or each other. That must be corrected. This is called the changing of blood lineage, or the ceremony for the reversal of dominion of Adam. Eve lost Adam by the fall; therefore, she cannot regain her intended spouse before God unless she humbly places Adam in the position of parent. Then God can make him her husband. Up until now women have suffered and endured much throughout history. Japanese women, especially, have had a miserable history. All women became the prey of men, who after the fall took the position of fallen archangels. We are going to restore this.
Our war is against the betrayal of love. If you do not have the confidence to be true to your intended spouse it is better for you not to participate in this ceremony. Because the Principle solves things, Satan is completely defeated by me. A man who found the secret of history and stands on the substantial victorious foundation of world restoration is a thorn in the side of the satanic world.
Our path is clear. We are going toward the Heavenly Kingdom. There are various levels along the way: the individual, family, clan, tribal, national, world, and cosmic levels. Every level in turn must be sacrificed in order to reach the next level. Finally, we must gain the level of God’s heart even if we have to sacrifice the cosmic level. God’s heart is the eternal level, where everything is completed. Everything follows this formula.
I know very well how difficult the restoration has been: When I think of how severe and burdensome it has been, I cannot fail even if I were ordered to do so. You may think that the Blessing is a light thing, that you are entitled to it after two or three years, but it is never such an easy matter.
I want you 1,610 couples to become families that God can admire, by living a sincere life with all your might. To be blessed is a serious thing. Viewed from dispensational history, God’s central thought is to recreate the pure, sinless family of Adam and Eve. That family will be the model.
In industry, once a prototype is made, thousands or millions more can be manufactured. I’ve been working tremendously hard until now in order to create that prototype. The focus of God’s dispensation is the family of the Messiah, the family of restored Adam and Eve, the victorious family beyond the realm of the fall. The central focus of man is to surmount the realm of the fall and to form the family centering on love within the realm of heavenly victory. So the focal points of God and man are really the same.
You were born in the course of fallen history, but you have attained the goal of mankind. How precious and valuable that is! Never before has it been achieved! Such a Blessing is based upon the clear contents of the theory of restoration. We have entered into a wonderful era. We must therefore think about the nature of the family in a new way. The family of Suzuki, for example, is not only the immediate family of one individual, Mr. Suzuki; it is a historical central lineage that may last for millennia.
Up until now, those who led a religious life left their homes and served society, sacrificing themselves in pursuit of the ideal heaven. You also left your homes, didn’t you? I did the same. I know how wonderful and precious the Principle is. So I wanted to teach the Principle to my own parents and brothers and sisters first, before anybody else. But God’s dispensation is not the dispensation to save Abel. God’s dispensation is to save Cain by offering Abel. That is why precious things are given to Cain, not to Abel. This is the Principle. I sacrificed all my life without buying a single piece of clothing for my own mother. I did so many things for all of mankind, but could do hardly anything for my own children. We are supposed to return to our homeland after we establish the home church condition on the individual, family, clan, tribe, nation, and world levels. We are now on the road of return.
An Abel is known by his love
This year I bought clothes and gifts for Mother and the children. Even though I bought them, it does not violate the Principle. Japanese leaders aren’t you teaching a principle that I do not teach, when you say, “I am Abel because I am a church leader. You are Cain. Cain obeys Abel. This is the Principle. So obey.” There is no such principle. The person who does not fulfill his mission and become the embodiment of love is not Abel.
People automatically and naturally bow before the power of love. The same holds true on the family, clan or tribal level. So if the Unification movement is the Abel movement on the world level, it must gain victory by shedding blood on the world level, and it must gain Satan’s signature on the certificate of victory. Only then can the Unification movement become the Abel on the world level for the first time.
Actually, Eve stands in Abel’s position at the moment of restoration. So for three years, you husbands should absolutely follow your wives. It may be better for each of you to work separately from your wife so you can develop yourself and she can respect you properly when you do get together. The three-year course after the Blessing is such a period.
Even if you are blessed, you still must fulfill the historical indemnity condition, finding three and then 12 apostles, and 72 disciples. You must think seriously about that. You have no qualification to be blessed, but I’m giving you the Blessing anyway. Since this Blessing is your home, if you profane it, you will have to restore it at the risk of your life. Although you have no qualifications to receive the Blessing, you can inherit everything as the children of True Parents, because you are standing in the position to have your name on the title papers. Because of this principle of the heavenly world, your Blessing is possible. Your challenge is to transcend the realm of Adam and Eve’s fall. Climb up on the shoulders of True Parents and leap from there toward God and all people. Hell may lie below you, but God and all the people in the spiritual world will immediately support you. Do husband and wife belong to themselves? No, they belong to God and the universe. Love is not yours. It belongs to God and to the human race. So during these next three years, run for the sake of God. Run, cultivating your heart of love. When you love your wife, the daughter of God, love her with the heart with which you adore God. If your love is not strong enough, God will not be moved.
If people around you do not consider your family exemplary, it is because your love is still not vibrant enough. When a woman loves her husband, she should love him with the heart with which she adores God. If the give and take of love within a family can move God, the four position foundation is formed and the family will prosper. If we spin a toy top, keeping the pivot straight, it will spin well. But if we and make the pivot unsteady, it wobbles. So, if we create a family with a steady and unchanging standard of love, not only spiritually healthy children, but wonderful grandchildren, can be assured. So, if you want to have a good child, make your love top spin straight. Then everything will be solved. You must form a family of four positions centering upon such love.
A person forms a four position foundation thinking about heaven, all people, and his spouse. Thus, heaven, mankind, and husband and wife are united. Adam and Eve fell without setting such a standard. Therefore, first of all, we must each strive to set this standard. Our goal is to love heaven and all people, enhancing our love by sacrificing ourselves. Please remember that you were blessed for this purpose. If you do this, you will be free from accusation by the realm of the fall. This is the principled point of view. The fallen world is centered upon itself. People forgot about things such as God’s love, the human race, descendants, all things, the universe, and so on. But we were created to think about these things.
We have seven years to achieve the standard of perfection in the completion stage. We prepare for the Blessing for three years and find three disciples, establishing the foundation of indemnity modeled on Jesus’ course. This fulfills the messianic mission on the tribal level. Therefore, we are not working for the sake of the Japanese Unification Church, but for the sake of the nation. I am working for the sake of the world. I am one step ahead of you and have been working busily to prepare the way by doing engineering work, as it were, building bridges, and laying tracks, so that you can follow.
Satan corrupted Eve at the time of the fall. But, at the time of restoration, Eve must be pulled up to the level of perfection through the Holy Wine Ceremony. The next dispensation must take place through this restored Eve. You men, who were fallen archangels before the Holy Wine Ceremony, have become restored archangels, but you still need to inherit the blood lineage as children of God. Before the fall, Adam was the son of God. To be restored, he can become an adopted son by being “grafted” through a restored woman, and then can finally bear fruit. This is our strategy. By which principle is this possible? Since an archangel fell by Eve, he can be recreated by a restored Eve, regaining his original position through the payment of indemnity.
It is important to understand these things before we begin this momentous ceremony. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we are here laying the victorious basis for the restoration of Eve. We need the spiritual foundation by which we can restore the bridegroom as the eternal spouse. l long for You to bless these couples so they can stand in the position of children who can be born anew centering on this holy wine. I pray You will protect them so they can be reborn and can victoriously subjugate the realm of restoration by indemnity and follow the path which leads to Your love in the coming three years. Please protect them. I pray gratefully, in the True Parents’ name. Amen.