The Holy Marriage Blessing

Respected guests from home and abroad, beloved Blessed Families: I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the work you are doing in many places around the world to establish God’s homeland and bring peace to humanity. We are gathered here today to commemorate the historic days in 2004 when ceremonies were held at venues on both Capitol Hill in the United States and the National Assembly in Korea, honoring me with a crowning as "King of Peace."

As it happens, this is also the 20th anniversary of the day I was freed from Danbury prison in the United States after achieving victory over the difficulties of incarceration there. That was the last of six times in my life when it became necessary for me to be imprisoned due to persecution and unjust accusations.

On this meaningful day, I would like to convey to you Heaven’s message concerning the value of the Holy Marriage Blessing and its significance. The title of my remarks is "The Holy Marriage Blessing Is the Path to Unite the Virtues of Heaven and Earth and Harmonize and Unify the Universe as One."

Beloved guests, in what form does God, the Creator of all things in the universe, exist? God exists as the dual characteristics of a subject partner in the male position and object partner in the female position. God created Adam and Eve, the first human ancestors, by dividing the male and female positions within Himself. The children of Adam and Eve were to have been created in the same pattern of male and female as a result of the union formed by Adam and Eve.

God’s creation takes place according to this principle of origin, division, and union. God is the first generation, Adam and Eve were the second generation, and the children of Adam and Eve were to have stood in the position of the third generation. These three generations were to have formed a single family. God gave His blessing so that sinless descendants could be multiplied through myriads of generations. This is how God created human beings.

If Adam and Eve had achieved individual perfection in accordance with God’s will – that is, if they had achieved the perfection of their character – and entered into conjugal relations with His blessing and accomplished a perfect oneness with Him, then a bond would have been formed enabling God to reside within them. Also, their children would have been linked to a holy order of love enabling them to form bonds of parent-child relationships directly with God. This is God’s greatest blessing to humanity.

In general terms, to bless someone means that we pray for their good fortune. What, then, is the zenith, the apex of good fortune? What is the most precious aspect of good fortune? It is not money. Nor is it fame. It is not power or knowledge.

It is not money, fame, power or knowledge. If Adam and Eve had only been able to marry with God’s blessing and multiply sinless children, this would have been the most precious of all blessings.

All creation would have responded with joy, and it would have been the day of God’s greatest joy as well. It would have been the place where the kingdom of heaven on earth and the kingdom of heaven in heaven would have met.

What would have happened if God’s creation in the Garden of Eden had stopped with man and had not included woman? The miracle of all miracles is that men and women exist together in this world.

For only one to exist would be the same as having no existence at all. Humankind would have died out in less than a hundred years. It is only when men and women exist together that the heavenly path can be established and ethics and moral principles can begin. So the marriage of perfected Adam and Eve would have been in a very real sense God’s own marriage.

While God would have remained God, Adam and Eve would have become the embodiment of God. The couple would have become God’s body, and God would have settled within their minds to become their True Parent, and thus the True Parent of all humanity, both physically and spiritually.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a result of the Fall committed by the first human ancestors, human history deteriorated into an endless spectacle of sin and struggle. Human beings, as a matter of course, were to have attended God as our True Parent; instead we became the prisoners of hell, dominated by the false parent, the devil Satan.

The bodies of Adam and Eve were to have become temples of God, in which God’s spirit would dwell, and they were to have become people of divine value. Instead their bodies became the haunts of Satan, hotbeds of all manner of sin and falsehood, and the devil used them for empty pleasure.

In practical terms, the Fall of humankind meant that the marriage of Adam and Eve, which was supposed to have been performed with God’s blessing, was instead performed centered on the false love and selfish desires of Satan. According to the Principle of Creation, true love, true life and true lineage are inherited from parents. This means that human beings, born with Satan as our parent, have all inherited false love, false life and false lineage through no choice of our own.

We became a pitiful humanity, exhausted by the struggle between our mind and body, with each one forced to leave this world having been unable to resolve this problem even at the moment of our death. We ignore the voice of our conscience, which represents the voice of God within us, and we conduct our lives controlled by the desires of our body, which has become the slave of Satan. This is a picture of the human condition. Most people are not even aware that they have fallen to the point of living in such a wretched and oppressed state.

They look around and see that others are in the same situation. They think appearing to be able to see, but being in fact blind, is quite natural. They become such foolish and pitiful people. How much longer will you live oblivious to this tragedy?

In principle, the person who causes a problem is responsible to solve it. Because we fell by false love, we must eradicate false love even to its last vestiges. On that foundation, we must receive the true holy marriage blessing centering on God’s true love, and set out to build true families. We must put down true roots that will enable us to multiply true descendants, generation after generation.

This is not something, however, that one can achieve just by wishing it would come true. Isn’t it true that, during the tens of thousands of years since the beginning of human history, no one has been able to achieve this state and save humanity from evil and sin? The many religions that have risen and fallen over the course of history have done their best to achieve this purpose, but even they have been unable to overcome the obstacle of fallen nature and have either failed or been forced to take detours.

But God is a Parent of true love. He gave Jesus the status of His only begotten son and made Himself incarnate on this earth. Jesus came with the mission of the Savior and Messiah and dedicated his life of 33 years to bringing about this will of Heaven. Yet in the end, even he passed away midway through the course as a sacrifice on the cross.

I am not referring to any failure on the part of Jesus himself. Jesus, who was qualified as the perfect human being, or second Adam, searched for his bride. However, Judaism and Israel, which Heaven had prepared for thousands of years, were unable to understand Heaven’s will and their ignorance forced Jesus to go the way of the cross.

Jesus was the incarnation of Heaven’s seed of true love, sinless and pure, but in the end he had to return to Heaven without being able to plant that seed on this earth. Jesus came to find a bride on earth, hold the Marriage of the Lamb in the presence of both Heaven and earth, establish a family of true love and multiply Heaven’s sinless and true lineage. Yet this mission was blocked, midway through the course.

The providence by which Heaven has sought the children of God, who were lost due to the Fall of Adam and Eve, will be fulfilled.

Please understand that upon the foundation of Jesus, who passed prematurely into the spirit world due to the disbelief of the religious leaders two thousand years ago, today Heaven has sent to this earth the True Parents as the saviors of humanity, the Messiah and the returning Lord. God is bringing the history of the providence of salvation to a close. He is carrying out His absolute and eternal providence in accordance with a plan for the providence of salvation that cannot be delayed or extended any further.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are standing today in a very active scene of the providence. Let those with ears to hear, hear. Let those with eyes to see, see with certainty. Let those with mouths to speak give witness to all nations. The Rev. Sun Myung Moon who stands before you now is the Savior, Messiah, Returning Messiah, Peace King, and True Parent.

He has manifested on earth with Heaven’s anointing as the one for whom humanity has waited with eager yearning for such a long time.

This is not my own claim. Founders of the major religions and tens of thousands of other saints and sages in the spirit world have sent messages testifying to this fact.

God himself has sent a message asking that all 6 billion people work to establish the Peace Kingdom on earth, centering on the True Parents.

These messages have already been widely published. If you cannot believe these facts, please put your life on the line in prayer. Surely, Heaven will give you the answers that you seek in prayer.

Ladies and gentlemen, what then is the path that humanity, which became wild olive trees as descendants of the fall, must take? It is to receive the Holy Marriage Blessing from God through the True Parents. A wild olive tree will always be a wild olive tree, even after a thousand years. It must be grafted on to a cultivated, or true, olive tree and secure for itself the true blood lineage. The Holy Marriage Blessing that is received through the True Parents is the blessing and grace of being grafted on to the true olive tree.

It is sometimes said in the world that the Holy Marriage Blessing led by Rev. Moon is nothing more than a marriage performed in the style of the Unification Church.

This ceremony, however, is much more than just a wedding to mark the coming together of a man and a woman for the purpose of beginning to build a family. Weddings held until now were centered on the two individuals involved, but the Holy Marriage Blessing contains content that returns joy to God. It is a precious condition for indemnifying history. It is a holy and grand ceremony of blessing and grace.

Please understand that, in this ceremony, we resolve the grief of God from the fall of Adam and Eve and pass through the standard of bride and groom that Jesus was not able to accomplish.

So the term "Holy Marriage Blessing" did not just begin with me or with the Unification Church. Instead, it existed within the innermost heart of God since the time of Creation. After the human fall, however, it became one of His cherished desires. Please understand that God has always pursued this as a goal and longed to see it happen.

Is there anyone who knows the circumstances of God, who had to walk a path of unspeakable suffering in order to bring about this historic day?

This is a historic day of resolution of grief and a providential day when God’s cherished desire is fulfilled. Seen on this level, the Holy Marriage Blessing is an incredible blessing, but it can also be an incredibly fearful blessing.

The position of the Holy Marriage Blessing is where all the sorrow in history, from the farthest past into the present, can be brought to closure. A new beginning can be made toward fulfilling the cherished desires of God. It is a starting point, an opportunity to create a new future for humanity. It is the most certain way to extricate oneself from the dominion Satan exercised in the Era Before Heaven.

Only through the holy marriage Blessing can you inherit the bond of True Parents’ love. It is the process and end result of the transfer of Heaven’s full authority. When a family who has received the Blessing goes to the spirit world, True Parents will be responsible for them.

This means that such a family will live under the protection of True Parents.

Once a heavenly bond is made with the True Parents through the holy marriage Blessing, this becomes an eternal and unchanging bond, and the key to opening the gates of heaven.

Then, ladies and gentlemen, what kind of time and age is it when the Blessing becomes reality? The Era Before the Coming of Heaven, when the world was under Satan’s dominion has ended, and we have entered the Era After the Coming of Heaven, when the Peace Kingdom will be established. This is the best of times, when the grief of God, who has worked for six thousand years to see this day, is resolved and the cherished desires of humankind for peace are realized.

It is the time when we see the fulfillment of the cherished desires of Jesus, who came to this earth but left before he could completely fulfill God’s will. In addition, it is the time when the blossoms of true love bloom and bear fruit for the first time since the creation of human beings, and when we can be welcomed by all nature and receive its respect and glory.

How strongly has God yearned to see this day? We come to a new era in which evil disappears. At this time, a new Heaven and new Earth are established under the bright light of the sun, and all creation communes together and the entire universe dances in a new morning of victory.

I have said that the heavenly ideal cannot be fulfilled without establishing a family of true love through the holy marriage Blessing. The heavenly ideal is completed when the Will of God is fulfilled and the heavenly way is established in the family, centering on true love. So what kind of love is true love? True love exists for the benefit of all.

It is a love that seeks first to give and live for the sake of the whole. It is a love that gives and does not keep a tally of what it gave, and so it gives without end, imparting unending joy. It is the heart of love of a mother embracing her child and feeding it at her breast. It is the love of a child who brims with joy by practicing filial piety toward his or her parents. It is the true love of God when He created human beings. True love is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, without a condition or expectation of receiving anything in return.

True love creates for us the wellspring of the universe, the center of the universe, and the owner of the universe. True love also symbolizes God’s root, His determination, and His power. So when we are bound together in true love, we can be together forever and still enjoy each other’s company. The universe and even God will follow when we pull them with true love.

The value of true love is reckoned by its power to bring an eternal end to the walls that human beings descended from the fall have created, including national boundaries, race, and even religion. An absolute prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of Heaven is a life lived for the sake of others, that is, a life of true love.

What is the heavenly way? In short, it is the tradition of Heaven, the tradition of practicing true love rooted in God.

A life of the heavenly way is an exalted life that transcends the man-made laws of this world. Violent social or political revolutions are unnecessary when there is true love and the life of the heavenly way. You need only follow the path of true love, the heavenly way, practicing a life of sacrifice and service for the sake of others. This is the path that will bring about an explosion of God’s love. It is the path to develop and expand God’s lineage and to preserve it forever.

You now need to run forward in this Age After the Coming of Heaven with a determination that says: "As long as God does not change, I will not change. No matter the circumstances, I will continue on this path.

Even if the life, love, and ideals that I have preserved until now in the satanic world are all taken from me, I will continue on this path. Even if God should change, I will bring God back and continue on this path with Him. If God is not absolute, I will make Him absolute, if necessary, and continue on this path."

Ladies and gentlemen, why do we marry? I have said that we marry in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and to save humankind.

We must understand that when two people become husband and wife through the Holy Marriage Blessing, the wife who stands before the husband is a daughter of God and a daughter of humanity. If the man can love his wife as much as humanity loves her and as much as God loves her, then he is qualified to be her husband.

The same is true for the woman. Just because he is your husband, don’t say: "Look, that’s my man." Before you claim him as your man, think of him as God’s son and as a man who represents all the men in the world.

Between a husband and wife, the husband is the right foot, and the wife the left. They should leave footprints of a life lived for the sake of God and humankind.

These footprints are, in fact, your families. But if either the right or left foot is not whole, the person will limp. Will you be people who leave footprints betraying a limp? When you become a couple in which the wife upholds the husband as she would Heaven and the husband holds the wife in esteem and protects her as he would the earth, then the place where they embrace will be where the virtues of heaven and earth are harmonized and the universe will be harmonized as one.

Respected leaders, we are now entering a glorious age.

The Kingdom of Heaven on earth that is God’s ideal of creation, the Peace Kingdom, is being established before your eyes.

The life that I have lived for more than 80 years, a lonely path speckled with drops of blood and sweat lived only for the path of Heaven, is now witnessing the fruits of victory for the sake of the six billion people in the world.

In more than 180 countries, Ambassadors for Peace who have inherited Heaven’s will and tradition are working hard, day and night, proclaiming the values of true love and true families.

They are moving forward with full force to establish a world of peace on this earth. In the Middle East, one of the world’s most explosive tinderboxes, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have found the resources in my philosophy of peace to engage in a new dimension of peaceful dialogue.

The Unification Thought of Rev. Moon also played a decisive role in ending the Cold War, and it will help to pave the way toward the unification of my homeland of Korea.

That alone is not enough to satisfy me. I began my life’s work at the command of Heaven. I have come as the True Parent of humankind with God’s anointing, and I am determined to keep my promise to Him to build His kingdom.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take the opportunity provided by this extraordinary forum today to declare a truly historic and revolutionary project for the sake of peace and the welfare of humankind.

This is a combined bridge and tunnel project across the Bering Strait, where Satan has historically divided East and West, and where the North American and Russian landmasses are separated. This World Peace King Bridge and Tunnel will be connected to a future international highway system, enabling people to travel by car from Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to Chile’s Santiago and from London to New York, knitting the world together into a single community in a new way.

Heaven warns us that separation and division will no longer be tolerated.

This project will bind the world together as a single community, tear down the walls of race, culture, religion, and nationality created by human beings, and establish the world of peace that has been God’s cherished desire.

The United States and Russia need to unite, along with the European nations and with China, India, Japan, Brazil and all other nations. All of the world’s religions need to unite as well. They need to combine their energies to make this historic project a success.

It will play a decisive role in establishing a peace kingdom where there is no benefit to war or division.

Ladies and gentlemen, some may question how such an enormous project can be completed. Where there is the Will of God, there is a way.

The science and technology of the twenty-first century has advanced to a level where boring a tunnel under the Bering Strait is no problem. The construction costs are also no problem. For example, do you know how much money the United States poured into the war in Iraq during the past three years? The figure is soon going to reach $200 billion. That is more than enough to complete the Bering Strait project. Why do the United States and so many other countries continue the foolishness and barbarism of war, pouring endless funds into the exercise of killing one another?

Humankind must stop repeating the perversity of sacrificing our children’s lives and squandering astronomical amounts of money for the sake of war. The time has come for all the countries of the world to pool their resources and dash forward toward establishing the world of peace that is the desire of God, the master of this great universe.

Humanity has entered a dead-end street, and the only way we can survive is by upholding the peace philosophy of true love, true life and true lineage as taught by Rev. Moon.

When your good ancestors are mobilized and the heavenly forces of the Age after the Coming of Heaven sweep down upon the earth, even countries and peoples that appear strong will have no choice except to surrender to the way of true love.

The choice is now before you.

There can be no perfection in ignorance.

This message I convey to you is both a warning and a blessing from Heaven. Will you join in step with me so we all may rise and gain victory in accordance with heavenly fortune? Will you become principal actors in establishing true families, true societies, true nations and a true world?

Will you become principal actors in establishing true families, true societies, true nations, and a true world? Or will you remain captive behind the same old walls that Satan likes – the wall of your religion, the wall of your culture, the wall of your nationality, and the wall of your race – and spend the remainder of your lives in agony and regret?

Heaven is summoning brave leaders who will turn this world of evil upside down and establish a new heaven and new earth.

Today I have delivered Heaven’s message. Please inscribe it deep in your hearts and remember that the Holy Marriage Blessing received through the True Parents has the unifying value of bringing together the virtues of heaven and earth. Please use this information to set new coordinates for your lives so that you may become wise leaders.

Let me end my remarks by asking you to pledge that you will become brave leaders who will maintain the heavenly way that has become the tradition of the Era After the Coming of Heaven and who will lead the world and humankind. Thank you.