Before and After the Marriage Ceremony

Welcome to another week of inspiring words based on the Divine Principle written by Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon.  We'll continue the topic of marriage and ideal couples centered on God.  In the Unification Church, members are taught the principles of the Bible from God's point of view and how He had planned a world of peace starting with the first family of Adam and Eve. 

Once members align themselves to these principles on the individual level, they are ready for what is called the Blessing Ceremony.  This ceremony is the matching of two people who most likely never met before.  It is different from any minister giving two people in marriage.  Unification Church members believe Father Moon is the Messiah who God uses to give marriage DIRECTLY.  Through this, the couple is engrafted to God's direct and pure blood lineage and pass it to their children who are then born without the ORIGINAL sin connected to Satan's blood lineage.  Father Moon believes through the restoration of family through intercultural and interracial marriages, world peace can gradually be achieved. 

This movement is worldwide with millions of members all over the world. The following is a speech he gives about love and the blessing:


"Have you ever thought about why I give such long sermons? I have a dramatic answer: because I hate to leave you. I enjoy every minute of my time with you. I study each of you, looking at your features, observing your reactions, inspecting your eyes, nose and mouth. I think about what kind of person would be your ideal mate. That is why the matchings (arranged marriage Blessing) go so fast: I have already done my homework!

I'm not talking this way just to be charming. I mean it. A godly person should be fond of other people. Godly people should love and enjoy their fellow men. Whether you go east or west, north or south, whether it is day or night, it makes no difference.

You must enjoy people. That is why people feel so drawn to me. If Africans were told not to come here, they would feel very sorrowful. They would try the front door, back door and side door and find some way of entering.

Why?

Because they would be attracted to the person who loves and cares most deeply for Africa. That is the result of my ideology. I want to meet everybody and establish bonds with them. I want to love all Americans; I love America more than the Americans do.

Young people are most sensitive to the magnetic power of love.

Even before I came to the United States, I knew that young people would be attracted to me, and my prediction was absolutely correct. You are young people, aren't you? Actually, what I am saying is simply that young people have purer minds than older people. Young people are more attracted to true love.


Yearning for People

Have you also been longing for other people? Have you been missing others, yearning to care for them?

Throughout my entire life, my job has been to love people and pray for them. I find that my prayers are answered; my prayers become reality.

Whenever I meet someone, I enjoy being with him or her; I can entertain, care for and love that person. When people are in love, there are no strange feelings between them. It makes no difference what habits they may have. It makes no difference whether they eat kimchee and kocheejang, or cheese and butter. There are no barriers between lovers. Their union is the beautiful culmination of love. Nothing else is more important.

A perfect plus is like a dynamo; it always creates a perfect minus. It happens automatically, without effort. Wherever a perfect plus is found, a perfect minus appears. If you are a perfect plus, you can sit in the middle of a village doing nothing, and the villagers will come to you automatically.

People are always drawn to me. Do you feel the same way about me? If I touch your hand, do you feel bad or good? How do you men feel? How do you women feel?

Many members think that if they could only shake hands with me once, their heaven would be guaranteed. But they haven't had the chance yet. My handshake is very expensive! I seldom shake anybody's hand, but still people follow me. 

Love Opens Every Door

Imagine someone who has just met a woman for whom he feels a tremendous attraction. Perhaps the two have just recently fallen in love. But then that man meets the Unification Church and he completely forsakes his lover.

Then he begins to yearn day and night, even weeping with longing to meet Reverend Moon. Only love can explain this. Only God's love can work this kind of magic. Love opens every door, including the door to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Such a person may come to where I am staying and I may yell at him, "Get out of here! Why are you sticking around?" But actually, if he loves me so much, I am already living with him in spirit. I will always remain with him.

At night, such a person doesn't have to worry about walking down a dark road, because I will take his hand and lead him. He could even close his eyes while walking down an alley, and I could tell him to step down and he would automatically do it. If I told him to step up, turn left or turn right, he would do so without even opening his eyes. That is how love works.

Physically, I have only one body; I am physically limited. Spiritually, however, I can be a million persons; such a thing is possible spiritually. I am known as a mysterious person, someone with mystical qualities, but actually it is not unusual.

Many, many times throughout the years and decades of my life, I have shed tears out of longing for God. When I cried out for God, missing Him, aching for Him, the entire spirit world would open up to me.

You should long for me just as much as I long for God. Actually, people in the Unification Church who don't long for me, who don't miss me, who have no tearful desire for me are not really members of the Unification Church. When you do reach that level of longing, you can immediately achieve unity, and the entire spirit world will open up to you.

Lawful, Public Love
My concept is that we should be people of deep longings; we should enjoy every minute we spend with someone. When we care about others, we have no dull moments. Meeting others is the proper job for people of God. That is what my life is all about. I am an expert at meeting others.

Someone who comes to meet me at East Garden for the first time may plan to stay only half an hour, but he discovers it isn't so easy to leave. I never tell anyone not to go, but people just don't want to get up and leave. This is a result of the power of love that draws people to me.

People are supposed to long for and miss one another. If love depended on appearances, an ugly person would have a burdensome life. Therefore, God, who is the king of wisdom and justice, designed us to be lovers. When you are in love, nothing matters; ugliness is no concern; you can accept everything.

However, there is one important principle in matters of love. It should be a lawful, public love; that means unselfish love. True love is definitely public love. Through true love you can gain everything, even the spirit world. Since you cannot go alone to the spirit world, you need to go with your beloved. Therefore, a truly loving person can open up the spirit world.

Those of you who are engaged, raise your hands. Your engagement is unique. Many of you were engaged to a stranger. But even so, when you first looked at that stranger, you didn't hate him or her, did you? After looking at the stranger, you didn't want to go anywhere else.

That is the spirit I live by at East Garden. I cherish everyone who comes to sit with me, considering each as my beloved."SMM


Return for tomorrow's Post: God Brings Union Between Man and Woman

This text was rewritten a taken from the Textbook: True Love Volume One, The Restoration of Love written by Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church.

Mass Weddings: World Peace Through Marriage

What is the distinction of God-given marriages and current ones?  Simply, the first marriage was outside of God's dominion and has been ever since.  We are blessed to our spouses in a 'conditional' marriage before God.  A True God-Given marriage sanctified and given approval by God will cleanse the blood lineage of the children and they will be born free of sin. 

Who has been in a marriage that has such a blessing? Every human was born into the bloodline of Satan's lineage, whose word we followed instead of God's, except Jesus.  Also, we have stated in several posts that Jesus was to plant God's seed substantially on earth through his holy blessed marriage directly sanctified by God and produce - Holy Sinless Children.  This was God's first choice. 

These two paragraphs alone explain a considerable amount about biblical history: why Jesus begged to stay on earth if it was God's will, why God dispersed the Israelites after they murdered Jesus and why Jesus returned in our time.

Since Jesus could not marry, he could only set the foundation for spiritual salvation, Jesus returned to the earth in our time to complete his mission to cleanse the bloodline through his holy children leaving the foundation for humanity to have physical salvation.  Who can deny that Jesus, no matter how holy, lost the battle of his body to satan.  This has to be reversed.

God’s desire is to end human suffering and build a world of true, peaceful families. God needs for us to take care of our portion of responsibility. If humankind receives and acts decisively upon God’s message, the achievement of God’s Kingdom will be relatively swift and joyful. If not, God’s and humanity’s suffering will be prolonged, and the misery and needless deaths will continue.

 
Blessing of Marriage by True Love

Then how can God’s headache be solved? How can families become fundamentally healthy? How can divided religions reconcile and cooperate under God? That answer is in the international Marriage Blessing Ceremony. The Messiah upon his return, Dr. Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his wife, began officiating blessing of marriage ceremonies starting with three couples in 1960.

With God’s help and going beyond nation, race, and religion, the blessing ceremony of 39.6 million couples, promising purity and fidelity, was carried out in Korea at one time.  This phenom has been titled Mass Wedding or Moonie Wedding ceremonies.



Here is an excerpt from one blessing ceremony:

"Respected leaders! I only want to stress once again that, through the Marriage Blessing, the world’s families can stabilize and finally fulfill their original role. For true family to be restored, we have to establish true love character, we have to attend God, and we have to seriously pledge to become true couples and true parents. Those harmonious families that are restored to the ideal through the Marriage Blessing Ceremony can create a peaceful society, nations, and world.
"This Marriage Blessing that encompasses all nations, races, and religions and goes beyond all boundaries is itself the foundation for world peace. Is this not God’s desire? That this miraculous number of families – almost 40 million! – can participate in this blessing of marriage is because of the active support of the world’s religious leaders. It was also made possible because many national leaders agreed that this true family movement can cure the fundamental teenage problems and the breakdown of families, and they have actively supported it. I would like once again to thank all the volunteers.

"The Marriage Blessing Ceremony can awaken people, especially young people, to the value of true love, and it can become the motive and catalyst for them to realize the necessity of absolute purity. All the world’s good young men and women who are awakened through this movement should gather together to stand up for a true love revolution, establishing themselves as eternal couples under God’s blessing.

"All these new families can receive support from already married couples who have renewed their vows before God and practice right ethics, and they can all become examples of moral citizens and build an ideal family, society, nation, and world – the fruit of true love.

"The Marriage Blessing Ceremony eradicates the connection to false (satan's) love and brings to life the holy content and value of marriage centered on absoluteness. This ceremony recovers true couples’ love, true parents’ love, and true children’s love. Therefore, those who participate in the Marriage Blessing Ceremony value purity and trust as highly as they do their lives and promise unchanging couple’s love.

"On the foundation of that true love, they can establish a true family, raise true children, and pledge to sacrifice themselves to build a true nation and peaceful world. In the world of the future, God, humankind, and creation are in harmony, living in a new culture of heart, a culture of love centered on true family.

"In the world of the future, true love means living for the sake of others in a world of interdependence, mutual prosperity, universally shared values, and cooperation. In the future, the natural desire of young people to live in a world of true brothers and sisters, one family of mankind, will be realized by centering on true love, true parents, and true family.

"Esteemed world leaders, the Marriage Blessing is the most precious gift that God is giving to us. My wife and I devoutly hope that you will participate in this historic ceremony to receive God’s blessing of marriage. From now on, the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification will expand the true family movement. By the year 2001 we will carry out the 360 million couples blessing in three different events. Because of immorality and the loss of values, our young people are falling into moral decadence, and the family is being utterly destroyed.

"Is there anything more important than saving humanity from plunging into ruin? My effort to globalize and universalize the True Family Movement and the Marriage Blessing Ceremony, which are the fundamental solutions to save humanity, needs the active support from respected leaders like you.

 "Those who understand the fundamental problem and the solution God is offering should band together within their country and form a True Family Marriage Blessing support group and create a movement to save your nation. I ask that you put yourselves at the center of this great work to restore humankind to its original ideal. We have to quickly educate all men and women so they can establish true families and enter into the age of God-centered kingship on earth and heaven, centered on true love, and live in the victorious world of freedom, peace, and unity."


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Spiritual Food or Die Trying

 

This excerpt was taken from a speech titled "Realization of a Peaceful World by the Ideal of True Family" given at the  4th World Peace Conference in Washington, D.C. 1997