Respected heads of states, ladies and gentlemen! On behalf of my family I would like to express my deep gratitude for your coming all this way in the cold weather to the Cheon Jeong Peace Palace to celebrate my birthday and that of my beloved wife.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have crossed the threshold into the twenty-first century where a new, Godly civilization is to take root in our history. Up until now the human race has known only an era of conflict, hostility and war. From this time on, however, it will be an era of love, service and sacrifice with God at the center. An age of happy families overflowing with pure love, and characterized by peace and justice is dawning.

This new era of Godly civilization will be a time of peace when God, humankind and the natural world are harmonized as one, when they can freely communicate with one another without conflict or separation. The connecting point for all these relationships is the ocean: all living creatures on the earth are born from an environment based on water. Therefore, the twenty-first century is the oceanic era of the Pacific Rim, the era of a new and Godly civilization of peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of the year 2007 and also this year, 2008, I proclaimed a jubilee year in God's providence. God has greatly blessed this holy year. It is a jubilee year the likes of which God and humankind have never experienced in thousands of years of history. God's heart has been in pain throughout history for thousands and tens of thousands of years because humanity has been confined under Satan's dominion. Humanity had endured oppression under the sovereignty of evil throughout the "era before the coming of heaven." That time has finally come to an end! From now on, with these two jubilee years as a turning point, the gates are opened wide to the revolutionary "era after the coming of heaven," ushering in the time of a new sovereignty of goodness in which humanity can serve and attend God as the Central Being.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you carefully examine the progress of history, you will undoubtedly discover God's plan and sense His presence as He tirelessly worked behind the scenes. Consider the history of civilization, which began centering on four of the world's great rivers. We are familiar with the Egyptian civilization that flourished along the Nile River, the Mesopotamian civilization between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the Harappan civilization on the Indus River, and early Chinese civilization around the Yellow River.

The center of civilization shifted over time to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea where the Mediterranean peninsular civilizations flourished in Greece and Rome. History continued to progress and the European continental civilization emerged. This continental civilization in turn gave birth to an island civilization, Great Britain, which flourished in the Atlantic sphere.

The British Empire, which dominated the seven seas and wielded its might as "the empire on which the sun never sets," passed its splendid culture on to North America. We know these facts from history.

Civilization on the North American continent raised the banner of democracy, which was rooted in Christianity. It bequeathed to the world the principles of freedom of religion and respect for equal human rights as it led the struggle against fascism and communism, which had established atheistic, evil sovereignties.

Through the victories of the First and Second World Wars, and the third -- the Cold War -- it won victory over totalitarianism and communism. However, that victory does not simply mean that America is great, and the development of human civilization did not stop there. Victory came because God had chosen and raised the United States of America as the Second Israel, in accordance with His providential plan, and had raised and trained the American people through Christianity. God worked through America to bring His providence to its present stage of fruition.

Ladies and gentlemen, the present time marks an important milestone in the development of civilization. Civilization has completed a circuit of the entire globe and has now arrived on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. History's course has come to the point under God's providence where it must be concluded in the Pacific Rim region.

No force can stop God's providence now. Though there were both victories and defeats during the course of indemnity under the evil sovereignty in the era before heaven, now nothing can prevent the rise of the Pacific Rim Era. Herein lays the special reason that Heaven declared both last year and this year jubilee years.

Respected guests, human civilization will be brought to fruition in the Pacific Rim Era. Within this current of heavenly fortune brought about by this age, we can say that the Korean peninsula is a land prepared by God -- a holy land. From a geopolitical point of view, Korea connects East and West and is located at the central point where land and ocean meet.

The Korean peninsula also serves as the basis of two great currents of cultural history with regard to ideology and political structure: democracy and communism, rooted in theism and atheism respectively, coexist on the peninsula. From here, a new page in history heralding eternal reconciliation and peace will be opened. In this nation, all the religions that have guided the flow of civilization will be brought to fruition. It is no coincidence that a time of co-existence and reconciliation never previously seen anywhere in this world is now unfolding with this peninsula as its axis.

The twentieth century was the century of material civilization; the twenty-first century is to be a time when a spiritual culture must guide and lead history. The Korean people will serve as the birthing room for this new culture. They are a prepared people that will bring the world into unity based on their tradition of revering Heaven and loving humankind under the realm of a single heavenly culture of heart. Now indeed is the time of God's promised revolutionary change throughout heaven and earth.

Distinguished guests, on this providential foundation made in Heaven, I proclaimed the dawn of the revolutionary era of heaven here in Korea, my homeland, in 2004, during the spring season when new life emerges. In my God-given capacity as the True Parent, I proclaimed before heaven and earth a vision of peace centered on God.

In the vision of peace that I presented, I emphasized first that a new heaven and a new earth, with God rather than humankind as the center, should unfold in the era of heaven -- in the era of peace based on the new, Godly civilization in the Pacific Rim.

As you all know, throughout the ages men and women both young and old have dreamed of a peaceful world and pursued a life of happiness. They made efforts in the spheres of politics, economics, society and culture with a view to realizing that dream. However, what is the fruit of those endeavors that we see today? Conflict and strife continue without ceasing in all fields of life and in all corners of the world.

The reason for this is that human beings are beings with a contradiction within themselves, harboring both good and evil. That is why this reality has been revealed throughout society and history. And it is why we should make effort in this era after the coming of heaven to restore God, the Master of absolute goodness, to His position of the True Parent of all humanity, and realize a world unified under the vision of "One Family under God."

Secondly, I proclaimed the absolute values that human beings need in order to live in a new and Godly civilization of peace in the era after the coming of heaven. Humankind is unable to free itself from the abyss of conflict and war. This is because people have become slaves to their self-centered desires, which originate from the Fall of the first ancestors.

It is now time to return to an altruistic life of living for the sake of others, to the original order that was meant to be at the time of creation. Nothing that exists on earth, especially a human being, can exist on its own. Everything exists within inseparable mutual relationships with other beings. All these relationships are characterized by true love, by living for the sake of one's partner.

No being can reach its own perfection and realize its original value in the plan of the creation without doing so through its counterpart. That is to say, a husband can perfect himself through his wife; a wife too can realize her original value by living for the sake of her husband in true love. A government's existence is validated only when it lives for the sake of its people. The heavenly principle dictates that true development is possible when the citizens and the government of a nation live for the sake of the greater good.

The third point is that a world of peace rooted in the new, Godly civilization will be realized based on true families that inherit the lineage of goodness centered on God.

Ladies and gentlemen, God's absolute true love does not instill in a person the desire that one's partner exist for one's own sake. Rather, true love's essence is giving, living for the sake of others and for the sake of the whole. True love gives, forgets that it has given, and continues to give without ceasing.

True love gives joyfully. We find it in the joyful and loving heart of a mother who cradles her baby in her arms and nurses it at her breast. True love is sacrificial love, such as that of a devoted son who finds his greatest satisfaction in dedicating himself with all of his body and soul to helping his parents.

When we are bound together in true love, we can be together forever, continually increasing in the joy of each other's company. The attraction of true love brings all things in the universe to our feet; even God will come to dwell with us. Nothing can compare to the value of true love. It has the power to dissolve the barriers fallen people have created, including national boundaries and the barriers of race and even religion.

The main attributes of true love are that it is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, so that whoever practices God's true love will live with God, share His happiness, and enjoy the right to participate as an equal in His work. Therefore, a life lived for the sake of others, a life of true love, is the absolute precondition for entering the kingdom of heaven. A life of true love is exemplified in the life of a new family that lives peacefully centering on God. This is the ideal model for peace and for all things of creation. The path is now wide open for humanity to establish true families.

Ladies and gentlemen, God's true family establishes the pattern for people to live for the sake of others. The warm environment of oneness based on love and respect between parents and children, mutual fidelity and love between husband and wife, and trust and mutual reliance among siblings is the true manifestation of the model, ideal family. This means that you need to establish a true family wherein the stem of true love emerges from the root of true love and bears the fruit of true love.

Such a family is where parental love, conjugal love, children's love, and siblings' love -- in short, the four realms of love or the four realms of heart -- are perfected. Only in such a family can the relationships of upper and lower, front and behind, left and right be connected as one and spherical motion ensue. This leads to God's everlasting, model ideal families and nations, and His peace kingdom.

The fourth point that I underscored in that proclamation was the international cross-cultural marriage blessing movement, which I am promoting to the conscientious men and women of the world who will take the future upon their shoulders. I have promoted this movement to realize the ideal of one human family of peace centered on God in the new, Godly civilization of peace in this era after the coming of heaven.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most formidable walls created and made resilient throughout history are surely the walls between religions, races, peoples, nations and cultures. There are still many people groaning and suffering within the confines of those walls. Who will break down this obsolete structure of conflict that has lasted for thousands of years? Where do you think its origin resides?

The solution to this problem can be found in the International, Cross-cultural Marriage Blessing Ceremony. Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, violated the heavenly law. As a result they were unable to inherit God's lineage of goodness and instead inherited the evil lineage of Satan. This has caused strife and conflict in all areas of life.

Human beings must therefore follow the heavenly path of regaining the original lineage that existed before the Fall, establishing the original order of creation based on that lineage of goodness. They should do this by aligning with heavenly principles through marrying and becoming related by blood with their enemies, thus breaking down those long-standing walls.

When blacks and whites, Christians and Muslims, and young people from democratic and communist nations build families with God at the center, all the walls and national borders that have remained unresolved by means of political, economic, diplomatic and military might will be brought down.

To open a path for humanity to go forward within this vision of peace, for more than half a century I have promoted the True Family Movement and the International, Cross-cultural Marriage Blessing Movement, rooted in pure love. I have taught that the noblest undertaking we should embrace during our life on earth is the path of becoming a true child, a true husband or wife, and a true parent.

As a result this True Family Movement has taken root in more than 190 nations of our global village in the form of a new, Godly civilization in the twenty-first century. It is contributing to the creation of a global community with God at its center. There is no conflict based on race, nationality or religion in a true family rooted in pure and true love; there are only true children, true siblings, true couples and true parents.

Ladies and gentlemen, as we begin the twenty-first century, we find ourselves at a truly historic turning point. We are at a point of decision. Can everlasting world peace take root, or are we doomed to repeat the twentieth century's dark and oppressive history of war and conflict?

The twentieth century was a period of ceaseless struggle -- including that of colonized countries to gain their independence, the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, and the Cold War. Living through this era, I dedicated my life entirely to bringing about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the peaceful, ideal world.

I have always prayed sincerely that the United Nations, founded after the Second World War, would be an institution for peace, and that it would uphold God's will for the realization of eternal world peace. The United Nations has indeed made important contributions to peace. Nevertheless, now more than sixty years later, there is no denying that the UN had yet to discover the way to fulfill its founding purposes.

The number of member states approaches two hundred, but the offices of these states do little more than represent and even insist on their own interests. They seem inherently unable to resolve conflicts and achieve peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, on September 12, 2005, I proclaimed throughout all of heaven and earth the establishment of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), which will enable God's providence to flourish. In September in the providential jubilee year of 2007, I elevated the Universal Peace Federation to the status of the "Peace UN" and I am developing it so that it may become the most respected institution in name and substance through its contribution to the realization of global peace and harmony.

Numerous Ambassadors for Peace throughout the world have made my teachings their own -- teachings centered on the Heavenly Father, consisting of the principles of true love and the ideals of true family. They will renew the "Cain-type" UN, and, upholding the heavenly mandate, will invest their whole-hearted effort to create One Family Under God.

Recently we held a magnificent ground-breaking ceremony for the development of the Hwayang area in Yeosu (in the southernmost reaches of the Korean peninsula). This project will serve as the cornerstone of the development of the marine leisure industry in Korea. I firmly believe that this development, which signifies a huge investment, will open new horizons in the marine leisure industry and greatly contribute to Korea's growth to become a great nation in the marine leisure industry.

This project's development will spread out to the continents through the region of Yeosu, where God's providence on the Pacific Rim will bear fruit. It will greatly contribute to the realization of the reunification of the Korean peninsula and to world peace. Furthermore, it will enhance the overall happiness of the world's people.

Ladies and gentlemen, Rev. Moon's effort to promote the welfare of humankind and peace is continuing in many fields of endeavor. By developing the "Abel UN," I am guiding the people of the world toward a venue of reconciliation and peace. This will fulfill the heavenly mandate to create a peaceful, ideal world based on the principles of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values.

The "Bering Strait Bridge-Tunnel Project" and the "Gwangyang Bay Free Economic Zone Development in Hwayang District" are ultimately part of this effort, and will play a central role in establishing peace in the realm of the Pacific Rim.

You have all now received God's call. I sincerely pray that you will join me in creating the brilliant culture of the new, Godly civilization in this revolutionary era, and fulfill your mission as a pioneer that will be revered by all future generations. Once again I thank you for honoring us with your presence on this significant occasion.

I sincerely pray that God's blessings and grace will be with you, your family and your nation.

Aju!