Distinguished guests from home and abroad, and blessed families around the world!
Today, we come to an exceedingly important turning point in God’s governance of His providence. It is unprecedented, historic and revolutionary.
My husband, the Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, the returning Lord, Messiah, Savior and True Parent who came as the root of the lineage of original goodness, has departed for the spirit world. Consequently, we now stand at a providential starting point from which we must inherit True Parents’ realm of victory and build the ideal kingdom of peace, one family under God.
True Father’s seonghwa brings me, after being together with him my whole life, unfathomable pain and sorrow. It is the same for all of you. Moreover, we cannot begin to fathom the sorrowful heart of God, who is the original substance of eternal love and the True Parent of humankind.
From another aspect, this is also a time of hope. True Father worked in accordance with the heavenly laws—which God established at the time of the creation of heaven and earth—to conclude, complete and perfect all the providential tasks on earth that no one in human history had been able to fulfill. He is now transitioning to the spirit world to exercise dominion over both the spiritual and physical worlds and initiate a new dimension of God’s providence. No spoken or written language known to human beings can possibly express the flood of emotions we experience as we stand at this juncture in the providence.
As you are well aware, I was led by Heaven to meet True Father in the pure and pristine years of my adolescence. By the providence Heaven had prepared, I received the grace of the True Parents’ Holy Wedding, which is of historic significance throughout heaven and earth, in the flower of my youth at the age of seventeen. I became True Father’s companion on the providential path, attended him throughout my life, and worked with him as we walked the way of the providence, which is governed by heavenly law. Although I was young when I set out on this path of the providence, I invested my entire being in fulfilling two primary missions. The first was to bring an end, within my lifetime, to God’s providence of restoration through indemnity, which was rife with bitter sorrow. The second was to complete the realization of the ideal world of God’s will while attending Father during his lifetime.
God’s providential history of salvation has been progressing continuously since the Fall of Adam and Eve, the first human ancestors. No one, however, could complete the providential course of restoration through indemnity, and we could only wait for the True Parents to come.
True Parents’ course began under desperate circumstances in God’s providence at a time when Satan exercised sovereignty over the spiritual and physical worlds and reigned with full authority. Satan, the progenitor of evil, who had maintained dominion for six-thousand years, feared more than anything else the emergence of the True Parent, who would become the progenitor of goodness. You can imagine how Satan would fiercely oppose this and frantically employ all manner of brutality in an effort to prevent it. True Father passed through a providential course of immeasurable indemnity prior to establishing his position as the True Parent through our Holy Wedding in 1960. Humankind can receive the True Parents only once. The True Parents that emerge are the True Parents for all eternity.
True Father began his providential public life course at the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Heaven had prepared Christianity, especially their Korean spiritualist movements, on a foundation of two-thousand years of conditions that Christians had established. It was to have fulfilled the mission of the providential bride by attending and upholding the returning Messiah, who was sent by Heaven so as to open the providence of attending the bride in substance. Christianity failed to complete this providential responsibility, however. As a result, Father lost the entire providential foundation—both the spiritual foundation, the two-thousand-year history of Christianity; and the substantial foundation, the victory of the Allied Nations in World War II. In these providential circumstances, fraught with immense difficulties and challenges, True Father had to act alone to once again carry out the providential course of restoration through indemnity starting from the bottom of hell in Hungnam Special Labor Camp. He endured and finally overcame Satan’s vicious attacks, establishing a foundation of victory by having separated from Satan. On that basis, True Father established the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity as the providential bride, replacing Christianity, and on that foundation he received me as the substantial bride and held the historic Holy Wedding. As a result, in 1960, True Parents’ course could finally commence.
Distinguished guests, beloved blessed families,
How can we describe God, the Heavenly Father, as revealed by True Father? God is not the Creator sitting on His throne of glory and honor; rather He is a True Parent of true love and heart who has traversed millions of miles in search of His children who have fallen into a state of death due to sin.
In his speech, “The Settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind and the Proclamation of the Word by God’s Substantial Self,” which he so treasured during his time on earth, True Father explained God’s existence as follows:
“Ladies and gentlemen, do you have any idea how much pain God suffered the moment our first ancestors, into whom God had invested His complete and unreserved devotion since time immemorial, fell and disappeared into darkness, becoming part of Satan’s lineage? Are you even remotely aware that our Heavenly Father—who endured tens of thousands of years of excruciating heartache so great that His bones shed tears and His flesh quivered—had to go through the long, dark tunnel of indemnifying the human Fall in order to save His lost children? How many of you have spent days and nights in tears, yearning to comfort our Father in Heaven?
This is how God is. True Father became the very person who experienced God’s suffering with his entire being. With blood, sweat and tears, he triumphed in True Parents’ forty-year course, and finally in 2001 he offered to Heaven the Coronation for the Kingship of God.”
Distinguished guests from home and abroad,
True Parents’ forty-year providential course until the offering of the Coronation of God’s Kingship was a path crossing peaks of misery unimagined by anyone. In a continuous life-or-death struggle against the satanic forces of the evil sovereignty, we were knocked down again and again, but got up again each time to continue the struggle. It was a course requiring life-or-death resolve and the investment of our entire being. We could not let our guard down for a single moment. No words are adequate to describe how True Father voluntarily chose to go to the bottom of hell, suffer hardship in prison at Danbury, and follow a blood-ridden course of indemnity, in order to bring the wilderness era to a close, concluding the six-thousand-year history of the providence for the salvation of humankind.
Despite being the long-awaited Savior of humankind, he led a life of constant indemnity, suffering imprisonment under Japanese oppressive powers, North Korean communist authorities, and the South Korean Liberal Party administration. What he said to me as he headed for prison once more in the United States is still vivid in my memory. “Don’t worry,” he said, “a new world of hope will be waiting on the other side of prison!” As someone who directly witnessed True Father’s noble life up close and walked together with him, however, these incidents brought me overwhelming sorrow. My whole world seemed to collapse around me when I thought of True Father’s dire circumstances, imprisoned in Satan’s den, and having his life targeted by communists. I fervently beseeched Heaven to protect his safety and health. Only Heaven will remember these circumstances in the providence of restoration through indemnity.
The wilderness era finally ended in August 1985 on the foundation of victory established through the sacrifice of Heung-jin, our second son, representing the True Children, and through True Father’s suffering in Danbury prison. With the Day of Total Victory as a turning point, a new providence began. True Father later met Mikhail Gorbachev and Kim Il Sung, communist leaders who were central figures in Satan’s realm, and brought them to submission with Heaven’s love. On that foundation, True Father established the Women’s Federation for World Peace in the position of the providential bride and placed me in the position of the first and only substantial bride in human history to attend the returning Messiah. I began to proclaim to all of heaven and earth the second advent of the Lord, the Messiah, the Savior and the True Parents. On the basis of this, I undertook the providence of mother–son cooperation for seven years while attending True Father, the center of the providence, and offered that victory to Heaven. Thus the era of Cheon Il Guk, the nation of cosmic peace and unity, began.
On May 1, 1999, during the Day of All True Things, True Father bestowed a great blessing on me. As he presented me with an award to congratulate me for being victorious in the era of mother–son cooperation, which will never be repeated in history, he firmly embraced me and whispered in my ear, “Mother, thank you for your hard work. You have scaled the summit of a great providential mountain.” At that moment, I was overwhelmed with emotion and began to weep. Memories of critical moments of having to embrace Cain and Abel while breaking through the opposition of leftist students on Korean university campuses, and of enduring all manner of dangers and concerns during hundreds of speaking engagements in 185 nations over seven years, flashed through my mind like a kaleidoscope as I received True Father’s consolation and blessing.
Respected peace-loving leaders and my proud family members,
Looking back, it has truly been an arduous course of restoration through indemnity. True Parents, however, brought a clean end to all of this. They have been victorious and have opened the gates to the era of Cheon Il Guk, in which the era of God’s kingship, the era of God’s direct dominion, takes root. True Parents upgraded “My Pledge” to the “Family Pledge,” and brought us from the era of praying in True Parents’ names to that of directly reporting to God in the name of our blessed central family. They opened the Cheon Il Guk era, a new era of the providence amid changes that previously could not have even been imagined.
With True Parents at its center, the system of the absolutely good sovereignty under God’s kingship has been expanded vertically and horizontally with the substantiation of the culture of heart. Through the Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony Opening the Gates of Cheon Il Guk and the Coronation of the King of the Blessed Families on the occasion of my sixtieth birthday (in 2003), the heavenly sovereignty put down vertical roots. It has since been firmly established throughout the world through the coronation of the king of peace for 120 clans and 120 nations. With the inauguration of the Abel UN through the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), the Entrance Ceremony of the Cheon Jeong Gung and the Coronation of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind were offered to Heaven. For the first time, the foundation for the substantiation of the ideal envisaged at the time of the Creation was firmly established. With the victory of True Parents’ fifty-year course, a providential jubilee year was ushered in, and we proclaimed the era of the heavenly calendar, marking 2010 as the first year of Cheon-gi.
Over the past three years, True Father did not for a single moment let go of the script of his speech, “The Settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind and the Proclamation of the Word by God’s Substantial Self.” He treasured this text and would explain it during hoondokhae whenever the chance arose. The following is an excerpt found under the subheading “My final words for humankind”:
“These are textbooks you will have to read and study even after you go to the spirit world. They are not just teachings that come from the mind of one person; they are textbooks and teaching materials that teach the heavenly way that God has granted to His suffering children for their salvation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have already mentioned that a life of vertical “noon-time” alignment casts no shadow. If we can all shine as we live such glowing lives, there will be no chance for the shadow of sin to be cast. Those who receive the light will be indebted to the light. I pray that we can now wipe away the tears of people in misery and poverty, and lead an illuminated life of eternal true love that dissipates all darkness.
The True Parents have achieved ultimate unity and offered and proclaimed the era of God’s full transcendence, full immanence, full authority and omnipotence upon the standard of conclusion, completion and perfection.”
Respected leaders of peace and beloved blessed families:
As a new providential turning point and new age dawns, my greatest hope is that True Father’s providential stature will solidify. Throughout his life, True Father held dear to each second and minute as he invested his entire being completely for the sake of God’s will. He relentlessly traveled to every part of the globe, and even to the spirit world. I hope the cosmic and providential achievements he accumulated in victories won with his own blood, sweat and tears can become an eternal standard and example for all humankind.
First, True Father is humankind’s ancestor of original goodness—the True Parent. Adam and Eve, the first ancestors of humankind, fell and became our evil ancestors. As Jesus testified, they are the false ancestors. With Adam and Eve’s Fall, God lost the originally created human beings. In other words, He lost His external form.
God carried out the providence of restoration and sent True Father as the final returning Messiah. Through exercising his own portion of responsibility, True Father elucidated the Word, which is the truth, and completed the providence of restoration through indemnity. Through the Blessing Ceremony and Seonghwa Ceremony, he opened a path of rebirth, resurrection and eternal life in the physical and spiritual worlds along which fallen humankind must walk. Consequently, the original true love, true life and true lineage, as they were at the time of the Creation, can only be inherited from the True Parents, the ancestors of goodness; and the gateway for doing this is the blessed marriage.
Second, True Father is the owner of the eternal truth, in other words, the Word. God formed the whole of creation through the Word. The Word is the truth and the substance. God’s love and heart are manifested in form through the Word. Adam and Eve, humankind’s false ancestors, defied God’s Word and committed the Fall. They were unable to substantiate the Word. Consequently, the Messiah had to search for the Word, the truth from Heaven, as part of his mission’s providence for the start.
In response to such demands of the providence, True Father elucidated the Word through many kinds of conditions, victories in separating from Satan, and receiving God’s confirmation. Throughout his life, True Father led and directed the providence with the Word. Through the Word, he suffused the world with vitality and life. He nurtured with love while completing the providence of re-creation. As a result, during the Jubilee years in True Parents’ course, he completed the eight great textbooks and teaching materials and established the hoondokhae tradition. This, in turn, allowed the pathway to the firm establishment of Cheon Il Guk to open up through the Word and through love within our worldwide families.
The authority of the teachings contained in the eight great textbooks and teaching materials is solely True Parents’ authority, and this must be preserved as the eternal tradition, without any change, for all future generations.
Third, True Father is the one who completed God’s providence of salvation. As stated in Exposition of the Divine Principle, human history is the providence of salvation and also the providence of restoration. Due to the Fall of the first ancestors, Adam and Eve, a world emerged under an evil sovereignty with the false ancestors as the center. Humankind’s misfortunes, anguish, sin and alienation, and war caused by all manners of conflict and hostility all arose from the Fall of those first ancestors. God began the dispensation to restore this world from one of sin and evil into the ideal world envisioned at the time of the Creation—in other words, a world of peace overflowing with happiness, self-sacrifice, service to others, and love. This dispensation has continued without ceasing even for a moment, throughout the course of history.
However, the providence of salvation that continued amid the recurring need for indemnity and restoration was prolonged repeatedly because of the failure of central figures and groups to complete their portions of responsibility. Two thousand years ago, God’s only begotten son Jesus came as the Messiah. He was crucified and ascended because of the people’s faithlessness. He subsequently promised to return.
Two thousand years later, as was intended and promised, True Father came as the returning Messiah, and achieved victory in the providential course, paying all historical indemnity during his lifetime. It is no exaggeration to summarize the course of True Parents’ lives as that of being in a state of constant tension and suffering. It has been a battle through life-or-death confrontations with Satan in the providence of restoration through indemnity.
Thus, True Father concluded, completed and perfected the providence through a forty-year course as the Messiah, a forty-year course as the True Parent, and a ten-year course as the Peace King, the King of Kings.
Fourth, True Father is the Peace King, the King of Kings. God’s will is that a peaceful, ideal world—a world where all people live as one great family under God—be completed. This refers, on an individual level, to personal perfection through mind–body unity, and the perfection of the family through the oneness of husband and wife, parents, siblings, and children. Expanding this concept, we are meant to create a world overflowing with love and peace, where our societies, our nations and the world come together as one.
Since the Fall, conflict between good and evil has been unending, replicating itself from the level of the individual to the entirety of creation. In the end, the divisions between races, nations and religions have brought unfathomable suffering to humankind.
True Parents set as their lives’ providential goals the liberation of God, the salvation of humankind and the realization of a peaceful, ideal world, and they have completely invested their lives for the sake of those achievements. With religious activities aimed centrally at a revival of spirituality, True Father initiated a peace movement for all humankind spanning the fields of politics, economics, society, culture, the arts, education, the media and sports. He indicated that a true family is the smallest unit of the kingdom of heaven, and he opened the gates to the true family blessing and blessed marriage between enemies. He made the ideal of one great human family a reality through the cross-cultural and international blessed marriages, which resolve all conflicts. As a result, a coronation ceremony was held in which 120 clans and 120 nations crowned True Father as the King of Peace, and the King of Kings. Humanity’s dream is now becoming a reality.
Fifth, as the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, True Parents perfected God’s stature, and for the first time on earth achieved the perfection that was envisioned at the time of the Creation. True Father had begun the providence of restoration through indemnity from the position of a servant of servants. Following each victory, Satan’s sovereignty was gradually eroded, while God’s stature was increasingly elevated toward its level at the time of the Creation.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus revealed that God was our father. You are aware that because of this Jesus was accused of blaspheming God, and he suffered the ordeal of the cross. True Parents, however, substantially fulfilled restoration through indemnity on earth, and restored honor and glory to God as the original Creator—in other words, as the True Parent who governs heaven, earth and humankind.
In this way, True Parents’ providential stature evolved according to the standard of the providence, and on that foundation God’s liberation and complete freedom were achieved. From the Messiah and up through the levels of True Parents, the Parents of Heaven and Earth, the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, the King of the Blessed Families, the King of Peace, and the King of Kings, True Father proclaimed, in 2010, the settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. That is, God is “the incorporeal True Parent of Heaven, Earth and Humankind” and True Parents are established as the “corporeal True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind” to complete and manifest God’s true and essential nature in substance.
Beloved members,
The suffering that True Father and I experienced in the providential course of restoration through indemnity, a course with which not even Heaven could interfere, is beyond imagination. We even had to offer four children of the True Family as sacrificial offerings for the providence. Who indeed would dare to say that they can comprehend this painful course of restoration through indemnity? I have dedicated my life, sharing the joys and pains of life with True Father as his companion, overcoming innumerable trials and difficulties. On that victorious foundation, we, the True Parents, gained, in a providential dimension, the right of equality, the right to live together, and the right of holding the same position bestowed on us by Heaven.
Respected guests from home and abroad, beloved blessed families throughout the world:
According to heavenly law, True Father will now make the spirit world his base and, while freely traveling between the spirit world and the physical world, he will carry out the providence to expand Cheon Il Guk. True Father will come down to the physical world as the substantial being of the God of Night and shall preside over the providence in a state of oneness of heart, body, harmony and mind with True Mother, who shall continue to preside over the providence on earth as the substantial being of the God of Day. Through the victory of Foundation Day, he will be with you in building the original Garden of Eden on earth. There is no stopping Heaven’s providence.
At this new transition point in this historic providence, I want to make clear that I shall inherit True Father’s victorious foundation and stand in the forefront to lead the providence on earth. In so doing, I would like to convey the following to everyone:
First, we must absolutely value the tradition established by True Parents as much as we value our own lives, and pass this down to our descendants, the future generations. True Parents established the tradition of love and heart, the Word and principles, the rules and regulations of our tradition, and the tradition of the culture of heart. The hoondokhae tradition of reading the Word, which is the crystallization of True Parents’ course in the providence of restoration through indemnity, should become the central practice in each family as well as in the churches and any gathering centered on Heaven.
At the same time, we must go forward in building a new order on earth. Please never forget True Parents’ tradition, by which the order and tradition of our organization is based on a complete unanimity that forms a unified body with the True Family centered on True Parents, and the Abel figure at the center.
Second, we must complete the ideal of the blessed family with which Heaven has blessed us. The family is the cradle of true love, true life and true lineage, and the basis upon which is realized the purpose God envisaged at the time of the Creation. Based on the eight verses of the Family Pledge, you should uphold the tradition of the absolutely good lineage with absolute faith.
Our vision for peace evokes pure love, happy families and a peaceful world. Children should be raised and nurtured with love and through the Word within a tradition of conjugal oneness—through parents who attend Heaven with absolute love. Through hoondokhae, you should foster the firm establishment of the Cheon Il Guk order in your families, and fulfill the ideal of the Blessing, in which the tradition of heart can take root both vertically and horizontally under the standard of “noon-time” settlement.
Third, you have all received the blessing of being tribal messiahs. Thus, you must work to fulfill that mission and responsibility until the time that Cheon Il Guk is completed on earth. Tribal messiahship is the greatest of all blessings given to you by True Parents, because fallen people could not be appointed tribal messiahs were it not for the foundation of victory in the providence of restoration through indemnity. That is why True Parents have consistently emphasized the tribal messiah mission during their lifelong governance of the providence.
The physical and spiritual completion of Cheon Il Guk on earth becomes possible when tribal messiahs fulfill their mission, passing on to each clan the Word, participation in the Blessing Ceremony and a lifestyle of living for the sake of others. Your clans would thereby establish the sovereignty of goodness and realize a world of peace, one great human family. When a victorious foundation is established in each clan, the Abel UN will automatically be safely established on that foundation and the sovereignty of goodness will be completed.
Fourth, all of us must create a community based on the culture of heart characterized by harmony and unity, with True Parents and the True Family at the center. Each of you, without exception, found the path of God’s will because you were chosen by Heaven, because of the merits of your ancestors and because of your own character. You faced immeasurable persecution in order to follow True Parents until entering this realm of victory today. That makes us all a part of a single family, a community of heart centered on one Parent. Division and conflict continue to afflict the world but the Unification Family can become brothers and sisters who can easily transcend race, national borders, and any other barrier. If you can show an exemplary life of giving and live for the sake of others, this dream will surely come true. Especially as we are in this time of great transition in the providence, I ask that you bear this in mind and engrave in your hearts that we must become one with True Parents.
Respected peace-loving leaders and beloved members of the Unification Family,
True Father, in the spirit world, is always with us. He exists without corporeal form, but he will never leave our sides even for a moment. What do you think he desires from us at this time? It is to march forward without pausing. God’s providence must continue until all people are centered on True Parents and a culture of heart overflowing with love and peace takes root, establishing a new order. Moreover, on the basis of the victory of Foundation Day, we should further advance to offer great glory to Heaven and to True Parents and to instill great hope in the world, to continue throughout history.
Beloved members,
I shall be faithful to True Father’s life and tradition. He set the example for us and led by example his entire life, doing his absolute best to achieve victory in the providence. The requests I have conveyed to you today are True Father’s last words as he was departing for the spirit world. I sincerely pray that you will engrave them deeply in your hearts and that you will all become victorious.
I pray that God’s blessings and love will be forever with you, your families and your nations.
Thank you very much.
