The Words of the Seo Family
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The Words of the Seo Family |
Loving Parents, Heavenly Father, we are so amazed to be gathered together here at this most historical time. In all of human history there has never been a time more valuable and more precious than this moment we have, right here, right now. We come before You today not only to worship and give our thanks to You; we also come to celebrate. Because of the victories of our True Parents and because of the merit of the age and the saints and sages who have gone before us, we are now standing at a most amazing threshold. Heavenly Father, not only that, we get to participate in Your providence of restoration. So, Heavenly Father, we gather together our hearts to invite You here with us that we can celebrate with You and rejoice because it is a new day and it is a new age. So let us not forget the value of this moment as we invite You into our hearts and our minds and into this service here. Thank You so much for gathering us together from around the world, and we pray these things together as brothers and sisters in our own names, Aju.
Good afternoon everyone and I am very sorry. I know you are expecting the tall, dark and handsome senior pastor to be here, but you get me. But, if God is here, then everything will be fine. So I really want to welcome you here. Thank you so much for coming, and in the tradition of our senior pastor, let’s begin by manifesting the Principle Symbol. Everyone know how? So start here, Give and Receive Action, Four Position Foundation, Inherit the True Love of God, Aju.
Well, Hyung Jin Nim actually is in the building, he is just not here in the chapel. Perhaps you heard that he began last Wednesday a very special, very challenging bow condition, and the purpose of that is a special jeong seong condition for victory to witness to 21,000 members for the growth stage Cheon Bok Goong. And does anyone know why he started this condition on Wednesday? Can anyone guess? Right, it’s the second year anniversary when he started his ministry at Mapo. Two years already. So for those of you who have been here for two years, hasn’t that time gone by so quickly? Hard to believe. And today is already August 1st, so today also is a very special day, Chil Pal Jeol. Many amazing and exciting things are taking place. Hyung Jin Nim is doing bows from 3:00 am to late in the evening -- 3:00 am to late in the evening. So, I hope that you will be praying for him, supporting him with your own prayers and bows. I’ll talk more about that a little bit later in the announcements.
But I would like to offer a reading from the Cheon Seong Gyeong today, just a very short passage and one that I believe most of you are very familiar with, but it’s always nice to remind ourselves. This is from page 880, and Rev. Moon says,
“What is the leading system of thought of the Unification Church? It is to have a parental heart. Wear the clothes of a servant, shed sweat for earth, tears for humankind, and blood for heaven. What is heaven? It is the world of love to which you bring your children. You receive love and say that you will give it to the entire universe. It is to have a parental heart and to wear the clothes of a servant.”
I’d like to share just briefly an experience that I had in relationship to this, I believe. Many, many years ago I was on an IOWC team and there was one sister who was really struggling. So one day I prayed and I asked Heavenly Father, “Heavenly Father, please love this sister, please take care of this sister. She really needs to know that You love her and care for her.” I went on to pray like this for a while and then I got a very clear idea that popped into my mind, and from my experience, when I am thinking this way and the idea comes from over here, I know it’s not me. Any idea what that thought was, can anyone guess? Exactly, the idea was that God said, “Well, YOU take care of her, you love her, you show her that I, God, love her.” And I thought, “Oh, oh, yeah. That’s kind of a no-brainer. Why didn’t I think of that?”
When I thought about that earlier today, I felt in a sense that this is God’s tragic situation. God wants so much to reach out and embrace us and love us. He wants to hug us. He wants to tell us how much He loves us. He wants to give us a word of encouragement, a word of hope, a word of inspiration, and as hard as He tries, too often we don’t hear Him or we don’t feel Him. So God is hoping that we, His children, can be His arms, can be His legs to carry us to people who need His love.
He hopes that we’ll be His voice, to give a word of inspiration, a word of encouragement, a word of praise, a word of condolence. And again, he hopes that we be His arms to reach out and hug someone -- amazing what a simple hug can do for someone -- or His hands that we can shake someone’s hand, pat them on the back. God wants us to do that, and isn’t it amazing, if you’ve done that, how does it feel? How does it feel when you reach out to someone and you think, “I am doing this representing God, not for me, I am doing this to show this person that God really loves him or her.” How does that feel? How do you think that makes God feel? I think that helps bring us both so much closer together. And with that, I’d like you to stand with me and let’s say Family Pledge # 5.
Brothers and sisters, let’s take this time now for prayer as a congregation and as Hyung Jin Nim reminds us, when you hear the song, think of the words. Also, today I like to ask you to pray for someone that you feel needs your prayer. Pray for someone in need, and as you pray, feel and see your prayers going out as beams of light to that person, rainbow beams of light giving them energy, giving them strength, helping them to feel the touch of God, to feel God’s heart, God’s love. That even though they are struggling, that they feel something special as you pray for them. So, during the song, please pray for that special person who needs your prayers. Let us pray.
Well, again we are sorry that Hyung Jin Nim cannot be here today, but we have a very special speaker. As I mentioned, Hyung Jin Nim is working very, very hard these days from 3:00 am to late in the evening offering bows, but he is also being helped greatly by our Hoonsa-nims. Today we are very blessed to have one of our Hoonsa-nims be our speaker, and I would like to just briefly introduce him. We call him Seo Hoonsa-nim and he joined our church in 1961. Some of you weren’t around at that time. Blessed in 1968, part of the 430 couple blessing, he and his wife have 4 children and 7 grandchildren.
Seo Hoonsa-nim served as a minister in our movement for approximately 37 years. Actually, he wrote on his biography 36 years 8 months, to be exact. That’s longer than many of us here are of age. He also served as a national messiah for four years and is currently the Boon-bong-wang of Laos in Asia. Earlier this year, Hyung Jin Nim appointed him as a Hoonsa-nim. Do you think it’s easy to become a Hoonsa-nim? I don’t think so. They go through a very challenging, very difficult, demanding course, and both he and his wife, are Hoonsa-nims. So, we are very honored, we are very blessed today to have Seo Hoonsa-nim be our speaker. Please join me in welcoming him to the podium.
Let’s Inherit the True Love Theology through jeong seong (Sincere offerings)
This is a reading from The Way of God’s Will, p. 216.
“The best way to move God’s heart is to offer jeong seong. If three generations offer jeong seong with the same heart, God will be with you, and there is no way the descendants will go to ruin.”
Next, from the Selected Words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, 13-104:
“At the beginning of the day at 5:00 am, the husband and wife of each family should offer a bow, in the direction of the Headquarters. There should be a joyful atmosphere coming from within. Sunday should be a day of joy that we look forward to. If we can’t set the tradition of offering bows, your descendants will not prosper.”
Aju.
I am inadequate, but I wish to speak on the topic, “Let’s Inherit the True Love Theology through jeong seong.” I’d like to give you some of my impressions on establishing the tradition of the ministry of sincerity and love, since becoming ordained as a Hoonsa, attending the International President Hyung Jin Moon.
If we are to inherit the True Love theology through jeong seong,
1) we should understand the stance or
attitude towards jeong seong;
2) we should understand the True
Love theology; and
3) we should declare that we will witness to
210,000 people.
I feel Rev. Hyung Jin Moon was born with an innate ability for the Way of Jeong Seong and the Way of True Love. We come to realize that from an early age he was endowed with his Theology of Jeong Seong, and the True Love Theology.
Let’s look at a few reasons for this. First of all, he was born into the Moon Family. If you study the tales surrounding the Moon tribe / clan, and learn of the merits of their ancestry, you can understand this. Second, if you look at the personal history of Rev. Hyung Jin Moon, for ten years now he has been carrying out spiritual training, waking up at 2:00 am in the morning. He has built up this accumulation of jeong seong. The third point is, through the key words of Seong-Ae, [taken from the characters that True Father and True Mother love the most, respectively] which mean Sincerity and Love, we can understand that he has been blessed with the essence of the ministry of jeong seong and love. The fourth point is that he has incorporated meditation and bows into his ministry from the start. This started at the Mapo Church, and now he has brought this to Headquarters Church, the Maebong Mountain (where he offers early morning prayer), to the Hannam-dong Training Center, and to the Growth-Stage Cheon Bok Goong Temple.
Now the International President is offering a historic special condition of 21,000 bows for the victory of finding 21,000 members. He started the first day with 4,000 bows, and wherever he is, his offering of jeong seong and bows are outstanding. However, he is now experiencing difficulty. On July 29, the first day, he offered 4,000 bows in a life-or-death battle with Satan, in order to indemnify the number 40. From the waist down, he had severe cramps and pain, and was almost unable to move. He received acupuncture treatment but due to side-effects, he could not eat, and was unable to do even 20 bows at one point.
We Hoonsas tried to do our best. We got together to beat the drum during jeong seong, and did our utmost with Hoon Dok Hae. In the end, we realized that due to our lack of jeong seong, the International President had to carry his cross, and we truly repented. So with a repentful heart some of us offered 1,000, and some 2,000 and 3,000 bows.
On the second day of the condition Hyung Jin Nim did 200 bows, and it was very difficult for him. So we ask for your support and prayers. Today, up till the time I came here, he had done 1,000 bows. Now, he has done a total of 8,000 bows, and he is making a new start. Let’s give him a big round of applause! 8,000 bows to make a new start.
However, at the HQ Church, I believe there is something we can repent for and really pray about. July 29: What kind of day was this? I think that some of you may know, July 29, what day was that? It was exactly two years since he started his ministry. But what did we do to commemorate this day? That day the president of Il Hwa Company gave a speech, and he mentioned this anniversary in his speech. But at the Headquarters Church, I think we should repent that we did nothing to commemorate this. Don’t you feel that way?
Regarding July 29 there are 3 points that I wish to reflect on. The first is True Father’s resurrection from 7 deaths, the completion of the 8 stages, and the victory of True Parents. True Parents said that it was a day of liberation and release in which their son had come this far, and for Hyung Jin Nim himself it was a time in which he’d gone through the formation stage of his ministry, and the ministry of Seong-Ae, in which he would have started the growth-stage. Furthermore, for all blessed families in this world, this was a day for us to inherit the True Love Theology and the Theology of Jeong Seong. Don’t you agree? A big applause if you agree with this!
The theology of Jeong Seong, what does it mean? I’d like to quote Father’s words:
“The best way to move God’s heart is to offer jeong seong. If three generations offer jeong seong together with the same heart, God will be with you, and there is no way the descendants will go to ruin.”
This is from the Way of God’s Will, that I quoted earlier. In these words by Father, jeong seong is the best possible way that we can inspire God’s heart. And if three generations share the same heart, share the same standard, then your posterity will be blessed, he is saying.
And again, Father says,
“At the beginning of the day at 5:00 am, the husband and wife of each family should offer a bow, in the direction of the Headquarters. There should be a joyful atmosphere coming from within. Sunday should be a day of joy that we look forward to. If we can’t set the tradition of offering bows, then your descendants will not prosper.”
So Father is telling us the way for the descendants to receive the blessing and prosper. With a joyful heart, he says, we should offer jeong seong. What is a joyful heart? This is a heart of goodness. In other words, Father says we should always be happy about offering devotion. We should offer jeong seong each day. We have to establish the standard of jeong seong.
The reason why I read these words to you is that the Theology of Jeong Seong, that Hyung Jin Nim is offering now, is totally in line with what Father says, always to offer this with a happy heart, a gentle and humble heart. Do not have anger, envy, jealousy, arrogance, or complaints. Always have a grateful heart, a heart without fallen nature. Our original, ideal mind. This is what it means, basically: True love, a heart of true love.
As we have little time, I’d like to share with you our International President’s words during training. He says:
"Only Truth leads to success.
Hoonsas need to be truthful. Only Truth leads to victory.
The Way for the Unification Church Family to go can only be through the Truth. Only then can the Korean Church have hope.
Hoonsas should always be careful about becoming arrogant.
Training is always needed. If we train to seek the Truth, this is the final hope.
Danbury Training is the start of all voluntary service in the Church.
In the Age of Indemnity, we did things just adequately / haphazardly, but in the Age of Liberation and Release we have to do things transparently.
The spirit world is transparent. If leaders are not truthful about the World Temple providence, there will be spiritual consequences.
If we are not grateful, we will not receive greater gratitude.
Training is a fearful thing."
When the International President speaks, he is always respectful. He always adds ‘Nim.’ He doesn’t just say Moksa, but Moksa-nim. To us, he says, Hoonsa-nim. And when he meets members, he says Shikku-nim. “So and so Shikku-nim, welcome!” He uses honorifics, the polite form. This is indeed the heart of gentleness and humility. Also he is now establishing the tradition of jeong seong. While Father is still alive on earth, we must offer our utmost jeong seong. This is what he says. Today, if you are a member of the Headquarters Church, right now, we have a 120-bow condition going on, a special condition which came before the 210-bows.
As Blessed Families we have been offering 120 bows. I really encourage members to do this, if you feel that you are a member of Headquarters Church. How about some applause if you understand this! If you haven’t been able to offer these bows until today, I hope that you can start tomorrow. In the history of the Unification Church no one other than Hyung Jin Nim has been able to offer this kind of Theology of Jeong Seong. No one before him has ever established something like this. So, shouldn’t we say that there is hope? Hope in the future of the Unification Movement? I think we all recognize that.
Have you heard of the phrase “Unbelief within Belief”? This is, for instance, in the case of Moses. Moses was a wonderful and wise leader. He offered much prayer and jeong seong. However, he could not enter into Canaan at the very end. At the very end, he missed his destination, which makes us sad. He had so much merit, and at the age of 120 the Promised Land was just before him. But from Mt. Nebo, he was not able to enter into Canaan, because of this Unbelief within Belief. We also talk about “Insincerity within Sincerity.” Jeong seong is sincerity; however, if someone is offering a lot of conditions, but has dislike, complaint, and dissatisfaction, you can refer to this as Insincerity within Sincerity.
So during this special condition period, let’s not get upset, let’s not show dislike, complaint, dissatisfaction, anger, jealousy -- fallen nature, in a word. Let’s live with true love. Let’s support Hyung Jin Nim so that he can succeed in his 21,000 bows. Let’s promise this to each other, let’s pray for Hyung Jin Nim, that he can be successful!
This is the conclusion, which is quite simple. If we are to inherit this True Love Theology, or the Theology of Jeong Seong, first of all we must understand the attitude or the basic stance of jeong seong. Do you understand this stance? Thank you. Then, all of us, we will be able to successfully inherit the Theology of True Love. Why? Because the most basic root of all jeong seong is True Love. We have to inherit True Love. Next, we should declare that we are going to do the 21,000 witnessing. What is this declaration? This is that one person brings at least one person. So, I have three suggestions, finally.
The first is that we can hand in the names of three people we will witness to. Start with the person closest to you. For instance if your husband is not coming to church, or your spouse, or your child is not coming to church, then submit his or her name. Start from the people closest to you. So, we write down three names of people we are going to witness to. Before Hyung Jin Nim finishes his condition this week, of the 21,000 bows, let’s each submit the names of three people. Can you agree with this? Thank you for your applause.
The second suggestion that I have is, that if we submit our list, we must witness. And in August, when we see each other, our greetings should not be just the regular “Hello!”, but it should be, “Have you submitted your three names to our President?” This should be our greeting. Let’s say our greetings in this way. Let’s give Hyung Jin Nim another round of applause.
The third suggestion that I have, is that from September 10, we will start a 40-day period, and every day we will be offering 120 bows. We will be going out to witness. Can you agree with this? Thank you. If you can accept these words, let’s give True Parents a big round of applause. Let us pray.
Dearest Heavenly Father,
Throughout history, Father’s heart has been in such pain, that humankind has been in the hands of Satan, under the control of evil. All human beings are now in the Age after the Coming of Heaven. True Parents have opened the Era of declaring victory of the Parents of Heaven and Earth, over the realm of the universe, with absolute morality, true love, life, and lineage. Through this history, we want to bring our hearts together and pray for Hyung Jin Nim for the victory of his 21,000 bows, the victory of the growth-stage Temple.
Thank you for calling us to Headquarters Church at this time, this historic place. Especially this past week, Hyung Jin Nim experienced on July 17, the revelation of True Father’s resurrection from 7 deaths, the completion of the 8 stages, True Parents’ victory, and the True Love Theology. He was so inspired; he marked this with calligraphy. You have blessed him so that he could bring victory of the formation-stage ministry of sincerity and love (seong-ae). You helped us to see the proud victory of the future Unification Church, gave us hope, and we thank You for being able to believe in this hope.
In place of Blessed Families, in place of the Unification Church, in place of everyone… he knows that our jeong seong is not enough, so he himself has set these indemnity conditions. We cannot imagine what he is going through -- 21,000 bows. On July 29, in order to go beyond the number 40, he offered 4,000 bows, but he became almost paralyzed. Receiving treatment from the waist down, the side-effects were so severe.
We can only pray, Heavenly Father, please forgive us for our ignorance, please forgive us for not being enough. If we had truly repented, and if we had been able to offer the 21,000 bows instead of our President, he would not have to go through this. We pledge that we will bring 21,000 members! We will give you the names of our three guests each, we will offer our bows, and we will go out and witness. Please forgive us.
Until the special jeong seong period ends, we will offer bows together, even if we are to collapse. Some members are daily offering 1,000; 2,000; even 3,000 bows. We will do our best to gather our jeong seong together. Hyo Jin Nim, who opened the door to loyalty and filial piety! And Commander Heung Jin Nim, Young Jin Nim, True Families in the spirit world, Jesus and the four great saints, please help us.
May You mobilize all of the Abel good spirits so that Hyung Jin Nim can succeed. May You bless him so that he can definitely bring victory in good health. I offer this report in the name of blessed central family, Seo Yoo Ahm, Aju!
Heavenly Father, we sincerely ask that You accept today’s offering.
We are awed at the complete conviction of True Parents and Hyung Jin Nim. We make this offering with the hope and wish to manifest and magnify the true love of God. This must be the focus of all our efforts every day.
We thank You for Your love and encouragement, especially expressed by the True Family, the Hoonsa-nims and others. The ideal of peace, a world of peace, must be achieved. Generations to come must not view peace as a fairytale. We always want to consider our actions and find a path of true peace and true love. We thank You. I offer this, and we thank You.
We pray, Heavenly Father, for the continued activities and the more sincere efforts to achieve the service and heart of our True Parents. We thank You and we pray that You can accept our offerings always. Michael and Helen Downey, a central blessed family, Aju!