The Words of the Masuda Family
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The Words of the Masuda Family |
Excerpts from the book by Dr. Yoshihiko Masuda, professor at the Chung Pyung Seminary. The book will provide many of True Father's words and guidance on Husband-Wife Relationships and family relationships. (courtesy of Jim Stephens of BFD-USA)
Question: Could you explain the fundamental difference between the "ethics in our daily lives" during "the providential age of restoration through indemnity" as opposed to during the "Age after the Coming of Heaven?"
Answer: We can say that the “providential age of restoration through indemnity” was an age of sacrificing our close beloved persons such as our parents, spouses, and children. As we have learned, if we want to restore the original world from the fallen one, we must set up indemnity conditions. The process of setting up indemnity conditions, however, always required pain and sacrifice. Put differently, it required us to walk the “way of the cross.”
In the past Completed Testament Age centering on the Second Coming of Christ, we had to walk with tears the “way of the cross of the heart,” as we had to sacrifice our most beloved ones. True Father says, “Moses' cross was that of words; Jesus' cross was that of the body; the cross of the Lord of the Second Advent is that of the heart (love).”[1]
In contrast, providentially speaking, we can say that the “Age after the Coming of Heaven” signifies the original world of creation before the human fall as well as the advent of “the New Heaven and the New Earth,” which is prophesied in the Book of Revelation 21:1. In other words, we can say that the “Age after the Coming of Heaven” is the age when we can practice true love and when we do not need any “prayer” or “religion” to achieve salvation. In fact, True Parents declared, “The age has arrived when all religions disappear,” on September 18, 2005 (August 15 by the lunar calendar), the day of Korean “Chu Seok.”
Therefore, the “Age after the Coming of Heaven,” providentially, marks the emergence of the original world before the human fall. It marks the emergence of a world perfectly centered on God and True Parents, surrounded by Blessed families who have completely fulfilled the mission of tribal messiahship and the restoration of their neighbors (i.e., “Tong-Ban Gyeokpa”) on every side of their surrounding communities. …
We can compare our move from the providential age of restoration through indemnity to the “Age after the Coming of Heaven” to that from the age of sacrificing our beloved to the age of truly loving our beloved. The time is changing into the age when we can practice true love and live a happy life filled with bliss together with God. Through the Family Pledge, every day we are pledging that “Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk,” lives…“by centering on true love.”
Therefore, the importance of sacrificing the beloved “Dedicate your Isaac!”, as was emphasized in the past, will be less and less necessary from now on. In this emerging “Age after the Coming of Heaven,” it will become more and more important to learn how to practice true love in our daily lives than how to sacrifice. Since the middle of the 1990s, True Parents have delivered more and more speeches on the topic of how to practice true love in our practical daily conjugal life, sometimes in a surprisingly graphic way, so that we can get the points.
In short, in the past providential age of restoration through indemnity, it was regarded as virtuous to sacrifice our most beloved ones. From now on, however, it will be regarded as virtuous to truly love our most beloved ones centering on God, in the emerging “Age after the Coming of Heaven.” In other words, it is not good to keep on sacrificing our beloved ones in the new age. It is my conviction that all the Blessed families have the responsibility to make our True Parents the greatest “King and Queen of Happiness” in the “Age after the Coming of Heaven” by practicing their teachings of true love and attaining real and great happiness.
[1] Sun Myung Moon, Blessed Family and the Ideal Kingdom 1 (New York: HSA-UWC, 1997), 65.