Excerpts from Father’s speech from the July 1st 2002 holy day, the Declaration Day of God’s Eternal Blessing, known in Korean as Chil Il Jeol beginning with the second of two prayers.
Father’s Prayer
Loving Father, today is July 1st of the second year of Cheon Il Guk. All the blessed families on earth and in heaven who were blessed up until June of this year have already entered the realm of the registration blessing for the sake of the liberation of tribes and peoples, together with their relatives, centering on the standard of blessing restoration. We are making a new beginning on this day as we pass through the boundary of the new age. All the truth taught by True Parents will remain throughout history. They are on a suffering course to establish the victorious foundation to restore and recreate history, which is far more important than anything else.
On the already established foundation of victory, each individual’s mind and body must be one, the minds and bodies of husbands and wives should be one, the minds and bodies of parents and children should be one and the minds and bodies of brothers and sisters should be one. With one heart and mind, we serve the Parents of Heaven and Earth, as one family and one blood lineage, representing all the clans in the entire world. We must bind all the brothers and sisters together anew in order to serve the Parents of Heaven and Earth.
To do this, all parents in the world must surrender to the mother and son, and establish the family foundation again. By serving the Parents of Heaven and Earth, those have entered into the benevolent realm of liberated families can be proclaimed as the chukbok joongshim kajong [the central, blessed families] starting at this ceremony on July 1st of the new age. With this, everything that was separated–into paradise and hell–in the heavenly world should be liberated, and the national boundaries must be broken down at the same time. Cain is the offering of love for the sake of Abel. Such offerings that have all been divided–one side representing the heavenly and the other the satanic side–must be put together as one as the unified substantial living offering, as the family level substantial living offering and tribal level substantial living offering to Heaven in the new blessed age of grace which we are truly grateful to be allowed to have.
Last month, in June, everyone in Korea was united centering on the World Cup. Korea could make it to the final four, which was possible with good conditions. One third of all South Korean people, one out of three, cheered on the streets for the Korean team and for victory under God’s graceful protection for this nation, and its future. We must remember that the name of Korea, Han-guk, not only has the meaning of one nation but also the nation of sorrow. We are grateful that all the Korean people could go through the period of national offering.
As we proclaim the realm of the unified safe settlement of the Parents of Heaven and Earth, the new Parents of Heaven and Earth are announced in heaven and on earth. All the ancestors in the heavenly world are not divided any more but are presently united in serving True Parents on earth, based on brotherly love. The positions of Cain, the elder son, and Abel, the younger son, have been switched. As we enter the age in which the earthly realm is the first and foremost priority, a grandfather stands in a grandson’s position, a father stands in a son’s position, an older brother stands in a younger brother’s position. As this age is heading towards the age of concluding the providence, when a new heaven and earth is being renewed, we are looking forward to a peaceful Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in heaven.
Heavenly fortune regulates the way, so that all humanity can flow into the central core. A tributary flows into the main stream to be part of a big river which eventually flows into the great ocean. There, the ocean and the river become one, salt water and fresh water become one. That water goes up into the air and showers the entire world to nurture life. We are watching such a mystery of creation in the history of the providence. In Your original world, all things exist in the formation stage, human beings in the growth stage and heaven and earth in the perfection stage.
Centering on all the blessed families, we should establish a nation. We should be one family belonging to one nation that represents the entire universe. We should love all the shapes and forms in the substantial realm of God’s creation and feel the unified realm of the substantiation of love. Making use of the things of creation for our nourishment, we should raise our families, nations, the world and the cosmos.
We are truly grateful to You for the chance given us to be filial-child representatives, loyal-servant representatives, holy-person and saint representatives before Heaven, serving You. We sincerely ask you to allow us to create the new tradition that history will record, while full of new determination.
On this day of Chil Il Jeol [Seven-One Day: the Declaration Day of God’s Eternal Blessing], we should make a new beginning. At the same time, we should keep in mind that we are not supposed to participate in this kind of ceremony alone. We should have the unified heaven and earth of Cheon Il Guk centering on brotherly love, with the authority of the chukbok joongshim kajong [the central, blessed families] in which the family ideal is realized. In the deepest heart of each one of us, we should want to represent our tribes, peoples and nations, centering on the glory of the subject families in serving heaven, while being full of new determination to be the first generation of filial children, loyal subjects, saints and holy people at this time by carrying out the heavy responsibility of restoration.
Let us resolve to make a new beginning. We are truly grateful to participate in this pledge service. We understand now that we do not live alone. There are tens of billions, hundreds of billions of our ancestors and our brothers and sisters in the spirit world, as well as hundreds of millions of people who are blessed on earth united with us, serving the central nation and family. Please bless us to make a new beginning with our heart desiring to be the new essence by completing the righteous path of the filial children, loyal subjects, saints and holy people who serve the family.
I ask this of You sincerely with all my heart. Today, on this joyful day, an age begins anew; this is a day of ceremony to newly determine ourselves. Each one should remember it in their heart. Before Heaven each one must absolutely keep the promise of this day’s pledge throughout his or her entire life, eternally connecting to future generations–all nations generation after generation–and the Heavenly Kingdom on earth and in heaven, the stream of the righteous path of the filial piety and loyalty throughout heaven and earth. We are resolved to be loyal subjects and filial children and start on this Chil Il Jeol.
I sincerely ask You, Father, please guide us from the beginning to the final moment of this ceremony, so that everything that happens here can be our opportunity to begin a new age, to remember the past and not to forget all the drudgeries that have been forced upon people in the satanic realm throughout history. I sincerely pray this on this day of Chil Il Jeol in the new liberated age. Please, Father, allow us to become representatives who have determined themselves to take the first giant step with new hope, representing families and tribes and the leaders who set the pioneering tradition for the liberation of the nation and the world. I humbly and earnestly want You to accept this Chil Il Jeol with joy. I report and proclaim this with all my heart in the name of True Parents! Amen! Amen! Amen! Please bless us!
Father’s Speech
We are here today to celebrate Chil Il Jeol. You should not think of this kind of gathering as some sort of coincidence. You should understand that the holding of this ceremony was inevitable. You have been attending these kinds of ceremonies as you please. Up to now, whoever wanted to could come and participate. But things will be different in future….
One can take responsibility for one’s nation, religion, ideology and philosophy only through the blessing received from God and True Parents. Blessed families can represent their nation and the world. When they settle as the central families, the perfection of religion and of nations come about….
To save this world for Heaven, we must restore the religious realm. Although religions are supposed to lead their nations, those who have had power in their countries have opposed, persecuted and killed religious people. They have done all kinds of horrible things. Evil people aggressed first and killed good people. History is soaked in the blood of good people. It has been an unthinkable course for God. You must clearly understand that the entire world and its history, the time since the fall, have had nothing to do with God and True Parents.
The instrument through which humanity has connected to God has been religion. The struggle between good and evil people has motivated the development of good civilizations, which will eventually lead the entire world to be one world, one nation and one fulfillment of God’s ideal of creation, a new world culture–thus freeing humanity from the evil satanic world. That is what has happened in the providence.
While no one throughout history has clearly understood, God has been educating people through religions. As time goes by, the religious realm will replace and transform the evil satanic world. The core aspect of that change is not limited to nations. There are numerous nations, including Japan, Korea, America and others. Those nations are not nations where God can settle; Satan can control those nations as he pleases. People fight and kill each other in those nations. Nations rise and fall. History is full of misery. History must change direction, because God does not want it to continue as it has. Primarily, what must be established in this temporal world are the first people who have nothing to do with the fall–what we might term human ancestors that are free from the fall….That is the standard that numerous people on earth, philosophers, religions and nations have hoped for. Yet, they did not even know that that was what they actually wanted.
What is meant by the fall is that a family turned upside down–Adam’s family. Because Adam and Eve fell, the first human ancestors shed blood, a brother murdering his own brother. Nothing in history could be more miserable than that incident. The lives of individuals, families, tribes, peoples and nations have passed through thousands of years of miserable, murderous history. All of that came about because of the division between mind and body. Don’t your mind and body struggle with each other? The cause of the division between mind and body was the fall, and the cause of the divisions among religions and political viewpoints is also the fall.
Today, people of many nationalities–Koreans, Japanese and others–think their nationality is the best. Japanese think they are the best, and Koreans think they are the best. People from big and small nations, regardless of their nation’s size, all think they are the best. Can there be two that are the best? How can there be so many of the best? If you watched the World Cup, you could see that people from each nation think their nation is the best. Can someone make it to the top in any way they please? Without violating the rules, one should compete and win in every respect. If someone becomes a champion without really qualifying for it, the achievement is meaningless. Nations are in the same situation. There are numerous nations today, and they all think that they are the best and that their traditions are the best. With this way of thinking, how can they even say they want to make a united world or that their nation should lead the world and so forth? It’s ludicrous.
Religious people are the same way. They all say that their religions are the best. Does the Unification Church think it is the best religion?…
In Cheon Il Guk there are couples whose minds and bodies are completely united. That’s the kind of nation Cheon Il Guk is, isn’t it? The Chinese character for “cheon” (heaven) [ Ù¸ ] is made up of the Chinese characters for “two“ [Ï£] and for “person” [Ï–]. Cheon Il Guk is thus the nation where two people are completely united as one. Mind and body must be united as one. People who have achieved such unity of mind and body form couples who also achieve complete unity. These couples, in turn, make complete unity with their children, who also make complete unity as brothers and sisters. You all know the three-object purpose as explained in the Principle. It is common knowledge even among newcomers to the Unification Church that the Heavenly Kingdom can be realized through establishing the ideal realm of the four-position foundation. Only by substantiating that piece of common knowledge together with me can you finally enter the Heavenly Kingdom, attending the Parents of Heaven and Earth. The rally was for the unity and completed settlement of the Parents of Heaven and Earth. The word jeongchak [literally: settlement, establishment] signifies starting something. However, anchak
[literally, safe settlement–rendered as complete settlement in the 2002 motto]
means one is already settled in a place one has claimed.
Yes, there was a need for us to settle. We did so eleven years ago. I proclaimed our settlement eleven years ago. It is the same. Having passed through the formation and growth stages, we have reached the point of entering the heavenly nation, living there in this age of perfection. In getting one’s life settled [jeongchak] one comes to find rest. The world of the unity and rest of the Parents of Heaven and Earth!
To have that, you must have a nation that includes your relatives and families. We must prepare, because we are now entering the utopian age of peace when we can finally rest.
Do you know why Korea has become so well known in the world at this time? It showed the world it is a decent nation, a nation where volunteers are very active and where people are very kind. That is all preparation for us to enter that age.
I have now established the Sun Moon Peace Cup soccer tournament. After that, centering on the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and people like Pelé, the king of soccer, I am going to make world-level continental soccer clubs and host an Olympics of religions. Centering on religious people such as me, we will have sports events, soccer events, an Olympics, and martial arts events. Do you understand? We must do martial arts. That is how we can protect ourselves. We must educate Yakuza [members of organized Japanese crime gangs] and the Mafia in the United States in our principles. Otherwise, the world cannot be at peace. We should prepare even for this.
Those who are not interested in sports and physical training will flunk. Why did Korean people come out to the streets and cheer? There was a [cumulative] total of about nineteen or twenty million people out on the street cheering for the Korean team. It was crazy. The spirit people in the spirit world mobilized and urged them all together.
The fans all wore red. They said [on the t-shirts] “Be the Reds,” which would mean “Become communists.” That really worried me. What could turn this around? People welcomed this phenomenon, but I was worried. Then, out of the blue, there was a battle [between North and South Korean naval vessels1] off the west coast, wasn’t there? Young men were sacrificed. But I can take responsibility for them. I can liberate them in the spirit world. It is no good if young people go over to that side. [Note: Father means that the sailors’ deaths had the effect of persuading people that communism is something undesirable.]
Sudden success usually attracts thieves, doesn’t it? It works the same in this kind of situation. Thanks to God, we ranked fourth in the Seoul Olympics, which no one had ever dreamed of. This time also, no matter how hard we tried, we could only rank fourth. That is the foundation to build the four-position foundation. On a four-legged table you can even build small houses, can’t you? How wonderful the four-position foundation is! No matter what, you must know what’s going on in the spirit world. Japan and Korea are brother nations. Because the two are brothers, centered on True Parents, we must thoroughly teach them all the reality of the spirit world.
What should you do in order to set things straight? From the top communist leaders such as Marx, Engels and Lenin, there are about a hundred and twenty who made significant contributions to communist history. They are now announcing that people on earth must get rid of the communist ideology, because God and the spiritual world exist! They are loudly announcing this. You must teach people exactly what is happening. That is the way you can open doors for me in the spirit world, so that I can freely command the heavenly army. My former enemies have become my bodyguards, mobilized to protect me in the spirit world. Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam are enemies. However, they all have one way to go–only one way. Unless they inherit True Parents’ love, life and lineage through the marriage blessing, they can never enter the heavenly nation. Those in the spirit world have become incredibly active, because they know there is only one way. Should we on earth fall behind or go ahead of those in the spirit world? [We must go ahead of them.]…
I have brought together saints and murderers in marriage. Why did I do that?…Because I have dared to do such a thing, uniting a nation and a people will not be a problem. There must be marriages across all boundaries. That is the fastest way. That is why you must get married to people from countries that have been your nations’ enemies. That is how you can stand as close as possible to God in the heavenly kingdom. You can be the central, responsible people to reconcile two nations that have been enemies. You should know that you could be on the board of directors for building the heavenly nation! If you understand, clap your hands! (Applause)
[At this point there was hoondokhae, before Father resumed.]
You all must restore your entire clan during the time I am gone. Whatever you are responsible for, no matter how important it is, you must leave your posts. It’s okay for you to leave your responsibilities for six months. You must mobilize yourselves totally to restore your clan and tribe within six months! You must indemnify everything in six months, this year. And you must complete the blessing of your entire clan in that time. That’s my direction. Do you understand?
Those who have major responsibilities in Japan or Korea should go directly back, but otherwise you should go to where most of their own relatives and clans are and bless them as their brothers to unify their clans or relatives. If you go up to the top like that, you can unify as one people. All the people in the world are supposed to be one unified people. I am instructing you to complete the blessing. Do you understand? It’s now July. We have six months. When I come here and see you on January 1st next year, I will let those who succeeded in the task stay, but let go from public missions those who did not succeed and have them sacrifice for the restoration of their tribes and the nation.
Regardless of the nature of their responsibilities, leaders must prepare two or three successors. I am telling this to the leaders of the Unification Church. When you leave [to restore your tribe], you must appoint substitutes that can work instead of you for six months. You may choose them from among your friends or relatives. Nowadays, you can give directions from thousands of miles away, any time of the day by cellular phone. You have such freedom. Time and distance do not matter. You can now be an independent subject who can freely work at anytime. If you were to successfully complete this task, would you still have problems or not? Would you have problems or not? [No problems.] I say you’d have problems! [No problems!] Okay. (Laughter)
I am giving you just six months. How many years has it been since the beginning of home church? This should have been finished thirteen or fourteen years ago. Do you understand? What else should you do besides that? Kwak Chung-hwan! [KCH: Yes!] Did I command members to work in their neighborhoods in ‘98 or ‘88? [KCH: It was ‘88.] Are you sure? [KCH: Yes, you told us to do it even then.] So, the providence of breaking through in your neighborhoods is more than ten years old now, more than ten years. I have told you to work toward breaking through in your neighborhoods twice, and I am asking you to do it a third time. If you do not make it the third time, you should all perish. If you do not make it, passing through the three stages of formation, growth and perfection, you will end up falling away. No matter what happens, you must succeed in the mission in two years. Therefore, those who are blessed by the Unification Church must be the heads of their neighborhood associations. This should be automatic. Right there, you must put down roots. You must put down roots in your neighborhood. Don’t you think so?… You haven’t put down roots among the families of South Korea. Communist sympathizers are taking over….
If all families settle and break through in their local neighborhood, North Korea will not be a problem….
Do you want unification or not? All of you raise your hands and pledge to do it in two years. Because I cannot leave you alone, I had to make a decision, giving you six months as a deadline. If it doesn’t happen in six months, I will reorganize everything. I will have to raise new leaders. I have laid strong enough foundations to bring the top leaders of the nation and teach them, centering on our Ambassadors for Peace. If they can’t do it, I will bring people from America and Britain and have them take up the leaders’ positions. You must not bring such shame on yourselves. Those of you who are determined to really pay attention and to fulfill the task in six months’ time should raise your hands and vow to do it!
Father continued speaking for some time after this.
1On June 29th, North Korean fishing boats, escorted by two NK Navy patrol boats, intruded into UN defined South Korean seas in search of blue crab. South Korean Navy ships were dispatched to repel them. Though violations of the fishing zone by both sides is a common occurrence, on this occasion, after a 30-minute verbal exchange, a NK patrol boat fired on the nearest SK patrol boat, which later sank. The ensuing 21-minute battle left 5 South Korean sailors dead and 19 injured. Information on North Korean casualties was not available at time of going to print, though one of the retreating North Korean patrol boats was reportedly ablaze.