The Words of the Beutl Family
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The Words of the Beutl Family |
My dear brothers and sisters,
Those among you who are already familiar with the content of this weekend’s 80th Cheon Il Guk Family Service know that it has been indeed a historic cornerstone commemorating the victory of the helicopter miracle for the sake of a new beginning represented by the number 8 and return to God and our unity with Him, symbolized by the number 10 (8 x 10 services). The theme of the sermon “Follow True Love” expresses in 3 words the essence of what our life is all about: To follow the way of True Love which our True Parents have shown to us in such an exemplary way.
Last Tuesday our international president Hyung Jin Nim had a life-changing experience which led to his “weeping and weeping and weeping” as he shared during his indeed moving sermon in which he told us about his eye-opening realization in respect to the quality of our True Parents’ love. Hearing his sharing I was reminded of St. Paul -- the Christian world commemorates especially in this year 2009 his life and accomplishments -- who had a spiritual encounter of meeting Jesus on his way to Damascus that changed his life forever.
A truly deep experience that touches one’s innermost souls can move a person to change the direction of one’s life, to set new priorities, ideally to be determined in one’s heart of hearts to live totally centered on the desire of our Heavenly Father. We all had our own realizations that made us decide to walk the way of God’s will. Hyung Jin Nim asked in his sermon about this point: What led us to join our movement?
In response to this question we are challenged to reflect on our own lives to see clearly, what motivates us to follow in our True Parents’ footsteps. In the case of Hyung Jin Nim, who represents us as members of the Unification Church, he went last week through a profound experience which he shared in a letter with our True Parents who themselves have been moved to tears of gratitude: “Finally the children understand.”
Father could not tell us how much he had sacrificed in order to open up the way for us to be liberated, but let us not forget what he explained on September 24, 2008: “All blessed families, you did not have the conditions that were necessary -- so through surviving the life-or-death trial I made the condition necessary for humanity to stay on course to the peace kingdom… This time in the helicopter accident there is a profound restoration of 4000 years of history.”
Hyung Jin Nim said in his sermon: “True Father died for us and forgot but hoped that one day we will see him with our spiritual eyes… When we do that we realize that our life is not ours but we are the recipients of this incredible grace and love.” And he encouraged everybody: “Its now our time to open our spiritual eyes to open our eyes to this incredible love and to inherit it.” He asked that we start sensing with our emotion, with our heart and spirit -- the value of our True Parents and their life of True Love.
As a graduate of religious studies Hyung Jin Nim pointed out that what distinguishes our church from others is the fact that we have the True Love Theology which allows the Unification Movement to unite all religions with true love. We are to stand in a parental position and embrace all religious traditions on the basis of having inherited ourselves the heart of True Parents who have become one with the heart of God.
My dear brothers and sisters, you must listen of course yourselves to this indeed historic sermon of Hyung Jin Nim in order to grasp its depth and hopefully make it your own as we commemorate the 1st anniversary of the helicopter miracle.
At the end of the service our international president prayed that we may become “Great victors of True Love” which represents the essence of what is needed in each one of us: That the spirit of True Love wins over all lower forms of love in our own hearts, leading to our being prepared to practice the same course as our True Parents did by sacrificing ourselves willingly for the sake of our children.
This does not refer only to our own physical children but this victory of heart must extend to all 8 levels of restoration up to the cosmic level cross that our True Parents themselves overcame at the time of the helicopter accident, which True Parents and their 12 disciples by absolute faith, love, obedience, sacrifice, commitment and investment miraculously survived.
The readiness of our True Father and True Mother to willingly die over and over again by taking our place and suffering -- in order to open up the deepest realms of heaven -- enabled God to protect their lives. They are the first divine manifestations of True Love with the attitude of taking the place of sinful mankind and receiving punishment instead of us, sacrificing their flesh to be unjustly beaten and their spirit to be torn. They rose from the grave 7 times on the foundation of having truly inherited God’s unconditional love. They died for us not only once on the individual level but also for our families’ collective sin, the tribal level, … up to the cosmic level and ascended finally on the 8th stage which represents God.
In them for the first time in human history God’s True Love became visible on this earth in its fullest extent and now the time has come for each one of us to realize this fact in the depths of our souls just as our international president did a couple of days ago, leading to his repenting ever so deeply, “weeping and weeping and weeping” as he told us.
What moved our international president so much? It is the realization of the incredibleness of True Father’s and True Mother’s love who sacrificed their heart and flesh, being ready to die for their children over and over again. We as members of the Unification Movement are their spiritual children -- we belong to their extended family -- for whom they voluntarily became an offering so many times.
True Father taught us the deepest truths and gave us the keys to open up the Kingdom of Heaven on earth which can only become a reality through loving one’s enemy, what has been practiced by our True Parents in a most exemplary way.
On God’s Day 2005 Father told us: “The key to protect the lineage is to love your enemy and liberate 30 to 40 enemies by going through eight stages of living and sacrificing for your enemy. I did this. I blessed saints with the evil people as a way to overcome evil. If you do this, the walls of Jericho will come crashing down.”
The anniversary of our True Parents cosmic level of crucifixion and resurrection is surely the right time to look at our own lives in order to make sure that we ourselves are walking the course they laid out for us. In which way are we living for our enemies? What kind of sacrifices are we making for them? Do we love their children more than our own as our Parents asked us in order to be victorious in subjugating Satan?
On that first day of 2005 Father encouraged all brothers and sisters: “There is always a way to solve problems. First, you must lay the conditions and then restore the result… If you commit sin you must set conditions so that your enemies will not accuse you.” He defined the true meaning of our value: “Your value is your ability to liberate the heart of God.”
To achieve the complete liberation of God, the hearts of all His children need to become free to love in the way our Heavenly Parent intended for us by giving our hearts for others, forgetting what we have given and investing our hearts for our neighbors again. In this time of the internet connecting people a person who lives far away on the other end of the world may be our neighbor with whom we can chat at any time.
This is an external expression of how we should live: Closely connected with one another as a worldwide family who shares freely with one another, a family where nobody is excluded and where everybody is supported -- and never judged and cut off. The more we are ready to make such an attitude our own the richer we will be blessed with experiencing loving relationships where no barriers separate us.
The True Parents of Mankind have become one with Heavenly Father, they made the heart of God their own, and now as the day of their leaving the earth is approaching, we are called to truly inherit their victorious foundation of manifesting the highest level of love that has become visible in their lives. In his concluding prayer Hyung Jin Nim asked that our spirit may come to God, renewing ourselves to Him. In response to his prayer we are asked to renew our hearts profoundly and unite with our Heavenly Father more closely than ever before.
The anniversary of the substantial resurrection of our True Parents is indeed a time of profound inner revival which each one of us needs to achieve. A hint for this can be found also in the interesting story alluding to circumcision, which symbolizes in its spiritual meaning purification. The internal sense of circumcising is clearly the removal and wiping away of those things that are impeding and defiling celestial love. The reason of this signification is that the organs of generation, in both sexes, represent heavenly love. Whatever covers up, obstructs, and defiles love, is signified by the foreskin; and the cutting off of this, or circumcision, was therefore made representative.
That circumcision is a sign of covenant may be plainly seen from considering that the circumcision of the foreskin amounts to nothing at all without the circumcision of the heart, purifying it so that it may be free to love God wholeheartedly. The more we unite with our Heavenly Father the more we will strive to inherit His heart of unconditional love for all His children and to manifest it in whatever we do -- for what Hyung Jin Nim prayed at the end of his sermon.
As we all know, it is on the foundation of the life of Young Jin Nim having been sacrificed that our international president started to search intensively for the meaning of life and with the support of his beloved elder brother he rose to the greatness of heart he represents today. Based on the sacrifice of our True Parents going through the helicopter crash landing and all the indemnity conditions offered, they could open the realm of substantial resurrection from which we all benefit now if we unite with their victory.
May we all come to the point of deepest repentance, leaving all impurities behind, and inherit God’s boundless parental love based on our True Parents having paid the price for our misdoings, so that their suffering will not be in vain.
Sincerely yours,
Nikolaus