Book Seven - Etiquette And Ceremonies
Chapter Four - Tradition and Daily Etiquette of Blessed Families
Section 2. The Exemplary Family Life of Faith

2.1. A family life of faith educates the children

Think about it. How many people come before Sunday Service and help prepare for it? Many are just arriving when the sermon is about to begin, after the singing of the holy songs. How can we call such people followers of God's will? No matter how well they make excuses, they are living a private-minded life, not a public-minded one. There is nothing we can hope for or expect from such people. Therefore, you should seek a fresh understanding of God's will and go forth with the resolution to be conscientious in public life and to be a good example in private life. (31-271, 1970.6.4)

All Blessed Families, without exception, should arrive before the church service starts and create an atmosphere of grace for the many types of people who will attend, so that they may experience grace. If you create a foundation of heart to support the minister before he comes up to give the sermon, the speaker will be stimulated by the fervent expressions on the members' faces. The number of such members determines the development of the church. (31-271, 1970.6.4)

You should consider public anniversaries and events of our church as part of your very own life and mobilize yourself. Families who do not do this are failures as Blessed Families. (31-276, 1970.6.4)

Blessed families should teach their children how to offer the Sabbath day to God by showing them an exemplary life of offering devotion from the break of day in order to prepare for the service. But in reality they do whatever they want to do, they do not pray, offer devotions, study the Principle, or witness in the name of a life of living faith. If the Sunday Service starts at 10:30, they should leave for church at 9:30 or 10:00. Instead of doing this, they leave home late and rush into their seats in the middle of the service. Such a family will be accused. As parents, no matter how much they educate their children, it will not influence them at all. (31-269, 1970.6.4)

Parents should set a good example in their life of faith. In the family, they should show their children how fervently they practice all aspects of a life of faith, including prayer life and family services. They should help the children recognize how important the time for Pledge is. They should not just hold Pledge service at that particular time, but as parents, they should also teach their children about God's Will. (31-269, 1970.6.4)

Blessed families should be exemplary in their life of attendance to Heaven. They should live a life of offering donations, doing Pledge service and witnessing. (35-312, 1970 10.30)

Sunday is the day to offer to the other members what you have planned and saved during the week that can bring them joy. On Sundays, you can share some specially prepared food and everyone should praise their spouses. (21-88, 1968.11.3)

You cannot expect your children to grow well if you do not even hold morning Pledge service or devotion time and go to Sunday service. 'Therefore, you should establish the four-position foundation centering upon True Parents. In order to raise descendants well, parents must live correctly. (21-87, 1968.1.23)

Blessed families should be an example in participating in Sunday service and in official church assemblies. (21-87, 1968.11.3)

Wherever they visit, members should first go to the holy place, in other words, the holy ground or the church. If they cannot, they should at least set up a condition of having done so. Each of you is an individual; yet you should bear in mind that you are more than this. You should each stand in the position of a first ancestor. (17-86, 1966.11.26)

Each family should prepare a white cushion. They should prepare a clean and neat place, sit on that cushion, and take time to offer sincere devotion to God. (17-47, 1966.11.2)

Whether you are awake or asleep, eating or resting, whatever you see or do, all your actions should be centered on God's will. (73-61, 1974.7.29)

You should offer all your devotion in witnessing to your parents. There is no greater happiness than receiving heaven's blessings with them, in the presence of God's will, and creating a protective fence as a Blessed Family. (16-329, 1966.7.31)

2.2. A life of prayer

You must pray. In deciding the time to pray, you should try praying at daybreak, in the morning, at lunch, in the evening, and even at eleven or twelve at night. When you lead a life of prayer like that for many years, you should know which period of time is the best time for you to pray. Knowing this, you should offer devotion to God at the time that is right for you.

If possible, you should pray with a person who has a high standard of grace. By doing so, you will receive grace through that person. If your husband has a higher standard of grace than you and if he leads an exemplary life of faith, you will come to receive grace because of him. After receiving grace in this way, you will look upon your husband as the most handsome man in the world. In reverse, if the husband receives grace through his wife, his wife will surely look most beautiful to him; she will be the most beautiful woman in the world. This is how couples should have been.

Thus, when you are awake, you want to see each other, and whisper to each other throughout the night. That is not something that brings ruin but rather prosperity. (31-288, 1970.6.4)

How many hours do you spend eating every day? Would it not be almost an hour and a half? You spend on the average one and a half hours eating. For spiritual work, you must invest much more than the amount of time you spend on eating. I have come to understand this fact through numerous years of my life of faith. (70-171, 1974.2.9)

Prayers are always fulfilled. Through prayer we receive energy and are shown the future prospects of how problems will unfold. You will be taught, "In this situation, do things like this, and in that kind of work, do things like that." You can accomplish great things by knowing this. Only through prayer can you pioneer that kind of path. You must know that praying is more essential than eating your meals. (102-111, 1979.4.15)

As we realize more and more that the path we must follow is one requiring a breakthrough, we come to feel somehow that this is impossible with our own strength alone. Therefore, we must understand that a person of faith must pray. (71-271, 1974.5.5)

Pray. Prayer is your heart's storehouse. If you do not have time, you should at least pray while doing your work. (27-89, 1969.11.26)

You should pray even while doing your laundry or walking down the road. You should constantly fill up your storehouse; it should never be empty. (27-87, 1969.11.26)

Without leading a life of constant prayer, you cannot go the way of God's will. Do not think of money in your daily life; you should first think about God's will. (27-88, 1969.11.26)

Have you become children of God who can receive His support? If you wish to maintain this, you should always be with Him and become someone who allows God to be with you. A puppy that leaves the bosom of its mother and goes around on its own cannot enjoy its mother's protection. (100-104, 1978.10.11)

2.3. Blessed families are the elders of the tribe

Just as I instructed at the time of the 1968 Blessing of 430 couples, you also should become tribal messiahs. You must fulfill this mission. For instance, the 36 couples from the Kim tribe should be organized centered on members of the Kim family who have already received the Blessing, just as the 36 Couples are organized in the church around me. If it is too difficult to establish 36 couples, you should at least become the ancestors of 12 couples. Then you should become the ancestors of your tribe and organize your tribe into twelve branch tribes. When you accomplish this, your entire tribe will be included in those twelve branch tribes, thus becoming a tribe of your direct lineage. (31-276, 1970.6.4)

Blessed families today are important because they are the ancestors of tradition. You should become a messianic family to your tribe and establish a tradition. (21-87, 1968.11.3)

From now on, tribes will emerge centering upon the Blessed Families. Therefore, you should accomplish your mission as a tribal messiah. The churches from now on will all be centered upon the elder of the tribe. All Blessed families are the elders of their tribes. (23-62, 1969.5.11)

Because the foundation for a new family and tribe has been established, you have entered the most historically wonderful realm of grace in which you can restore your tribes. So the time has come for you to witness to your parents, brothers, and sisters. The purpose of the history of restoration is to restore the family. How much faster would it be to restore your direct family rather than other families! It seems like a dream for you to be able to hear me pronounce, in my lifetime, the order to witness to your parents and your siblings. (17-53, 1973.7.1)

You can now build up a tribal foundation in your lifetime. How glorious this is! You should he grateful to know this. Yet, if you cannot fulfill that responsibility, your family will still be held accountable for it. In this respect, of course, the responsibility of the family is important, but now families should take upon themselves the mission of tribal messiah. (31-280, 1970.6.4)

Once you are caught there, hell is a place you cannot escape from. Still, you do not feel a sense of desperation that your parents and your relatives may go to hell. You are just idly thinking, "Let's let it be as it is." But imagine that your loving parents could really go to hell! If they had to go to jail in the secular world, you would make whatever effort necessary to release them. That's just human love. As sons and daughters connected to heavenly love, then what are you going to do about your parents, relatives, brothers, and sisters who have to go to jail for eternity? (34-266, 1970.9.13)

In Blessed Families, the man stands as a physical representative of Jesus and the woman stands as a physical representative of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Blessed families should dash forward to rescue the Korean people without delay, just as Jesus and the Holy Spirit did for the people of Israel. Thus Blessed families can begin their mission as tribal messiahs. (21-284, 1963.12.1)

You have the responsibility to reach the land of Israel with your family. Just as the twelve tribes of Israel had to go to their assigned areas in the land, you are to march forward to take your family and find the land of your inheritance for your tribe. (35-302, 1970.10.30)

Why did I send you out as tribal messiahs? In the past, Jesus was sent to this world through a vertical course from the spirit world. Today, True Father is in the position of God and, as a representative of Heaven, is sending out thousands of messianic families who can represent their tribes to the world. Now we cannot perish. I proclaimed tribal messiahship at 2:30 pm on January 3, 1989. (185-233, 1989.1.8)

You have to understand that the tribal messiah is in the vanguard and guides his tribe to their historical hometown within his lifetime. You are the vanguard, just as Moses was during the Exodus, it is not blind devotion. Moses did not know certain things, but I know everything in a logical and detailed way. You must return to your hometown, but you cannot return there without finding Cain. (102-264, 1979.1.14)

Why do you have to fulfill the responsibility of tribal messiah? The first reason is that you must save your parents. Your parents are in the position of the first Adam, and you are in the position of the second Adam. You must complete the mission of Adam by restoring and re-creating your parents. The second reason is that you need a hometown. By completing the responsibility of tribal messiah, you will be able to have your own hometown.

Ultimately, the reason for fulfilling your portion of responsibility as a tribal messiah is the perfection of Adam's family. In real terms, you have to educate your tribe. (244-211, 1993.2.7)

In order for an individual to achieve settlement, he needs a family. Thus, the Unification Church has been fighting to establish families. In the same way, a family cannot find settlement without a tribe. Your tribe serves as a fence to protect you and your family from the blast of the wind and all other adverse things. Without creating such a realm that can serve this purpose, you cannot exist in a peaceful family.

In order to do that, you should become the tribal elder fur your relatives. If you become their tribal elder, even if there is fighting going on, relatives from different villages will go out to the frontline and fight, and the elder just has to direct their commands. Then he can rest! Therefore, I am telling you to fulfill the mission of tribal messiah. Then, you can go on to fulfill the mission of national messiah. In the future, if you go out to the world and witness, you are doing the mission of a national messiah. (56-311, 1972.5.18)

If you are named Kim, you should fulfill the mission as a messiah of the Kim clan. You should think, "1 am the messiah," representing the Kim clan if you are a Kim, or representing the Park clan if you are a Park, and feel responsible to build the heavenly nation representing that clan. Think that you are the savior who is redeeming the Kim clan. To do that, you must fulfill the responsibility of being a high priest to the entire Kim clan. (155-265, 1965.10.31)

What is the ultimate goal? What is the method to find the solution? What do we have to do to receive the benefits of breaking down all the walls and being able to solve human problems? We have to become tribal messiahs. When this is completed, there will remain nothing that can be a condition for individuals, families, tribes, nations, or any people of the world to accuse True Parents. (89-110, 1989.3.19)