The Words of the Yang Family
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The Words of the Yang Family |
Blessing candidates from nations around the world, parents, friends, relatives, and honored guests from home and abroad -- on this day you are present at the ceremony through which men and women are permitted to become eternal couples who personify true love through the blessing of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind on earth, in the presence of our Heavenly Father, who feels infinite joy, and watched over by billions in the spiritual world, including Heung-jin nim, its commander-in-chief, and Dae-mo nim.
In particular, this is a day of great significance and limitless distinction for you, blessing candidates, because our eternal Abel, a True Son, FFWPU International President and Senior Pastor of the Headquarters Church, Rev. Moon Hyung-jin and his wife have come on behalf of True Parents to preside over this ceremony.
This moment, as you become bonded together as husband and wife with Heaven's blessing, fulfills the dreams of good men and women who have kept their bodies and minds pure and precious, as well as the dreams of parents who raised their children and valued them more than their own lives. In a broader and deeper sense, it is a moment when the aim of history and the desire God has harbored for thousands of years are fulfilled.
The origin of this incredible blessing dates back forty-eight years. On April 16, 1960, True Parents blessed the first three couples, in Korea, at what was then the headquarters church, and the blessing vows made before Heaven at that time formed the basis of the Blessing Ceremony, in which hundreds of millions of couples have taken part:
Heavenly Father, having triumphed over the course of restoration, we have come to serve the original and rightful True Parents, so please receive us as Your children on this day and bestow on us the blessing of eternal happiness, which You had meant to permit us as the intention of the Creation.
As can be seen from these words, the blessing is a tremendous grace bestowed from above -- that is, through God and True Parents' exceptional love, based on the earnest request of fallen people. Marriage in the secular world is the coming together of men and women in a horizontal relationship. Therefore, we place the word "blessed" before the word "marriage," and call this "blessed marriage."
To the first generation, the blessing represents the miracle of resurrection and rebirth, by which we are grafted to the lineage lost through our fallen ancestors, born anew into Heaven's lineage. To those in the second generation, it represents the first steps taken on your way to fulfill your true value, as originally intended, by being bound as true husbands and wives in the restored bloodline, unrelated to the original sin.
By connecting to us through the blessing, Heaven is seeking to unite humanity under one God. In this way, the divisions of race and of religion, the existence of which have compelled groups toward conflict and confrontation, can be dispelled, and we can take part in the great historical task of constructing a peaceful world. Toward that end and in accordance with the teachings of True Parents, blacks and whites, Orientals and Occidentals, Jews and Muslims are becoming husbands and wives through the marriage blessing, which transcends culture and race.
In addition, marriages between spouses of different race, religion or nationality have produced children and grandchildren who are growing up in various parts of the world with beautiful open minds, unimpeded by boundaries. Having hearts, which as a product of true love are without walls, as originally intended, they represent hope for peace encompassing the human race.
Having been sent by True Parents to work in various parts of the world, I have seen with my own eyes places where boundaries between races have broken down, conflicts between religions have vanished and genuine peace has bloomed as a result of marriage blessings that transcended culture and race. Leaders of international prominence in many fields also recognize that the only hope for humanity and for planet Earth lies with the true family movement, which is based on the blessing, which comes from God. The marriage blessing ceremony is being recognized not as a denominational rite but as the means of saving nations and the world.
Beloved blessing candidates, for you, taking part in the Marriage Blessing for the Godly Civilization under the Sacred Reign of Peace is a solemn occasion, from which you set out toward the ideal of humanity as one brotherhood, the world as one home under one God, with true love at its center.
God's ideal of true love is eternal, not only on earth but even in heaven. I hope you will form true families, completing the revolutions of indemnity conscience and heart by inheriting True Parents' Hoon Dok tradition and incorporating it into your family's, tribe's and community's lifestyle.
I also hope that you not only recite the Family Pledge but practice it in your homes. By doing so, you should realize the ideal of a true couple, have good children and raise them as model citizens of Cheon II Guk. Your exemplary loving lives, centered on the values inherent in the blessing, will renew hope and become a guide for others in the diseased society and world. The complete, virginal purity you have kept before marriage should translate into absolute fidelity after the blessing, so that you can practice absolute sexual ethics in your families.
You should become princes and princesses in the movement for the absoluteness of the conjugal bond. You should follow the examples True Parents have set in living unselfishly for the sake of others and become key figures in the work to achieve world peace.
Beloved blessing candidates and honored guests! I would like to think back to April 16, 1960, the day of the first Blessing Ceremony. At the moment when the dream that God had waited to see realized for thousands of blood, sweat and tear-filled years and that True Parents had endured decades of hardships and had shed their own tears, sweat and blood to see realized finally came true, True Father gave a joyful benediction. I will read it to you to conclude my message today:
How joyful this day of victory is! Please permit us the blessing of new days together within our Heavenly Father's glory, and may all peoples, all creation, and the earth come together to praise and glorify Heaven. Here before You are standing Your new sons and daughters, who have passed through a course of troubles, so please permit them to sing to the entire universe of this joyful holy marriage blessing, for which they attended today's joyful ceremony as brides and grooms who can connect to the heart of creation as desired by God, represent the heart of restoration and represent a heart full of hope. I hope and pray You will permit Your joy to overflow in Heaven, in the protector of Heaven and in all forms of creation in the universe.
Praying that the eternal blessing of God will, in future days, be with the brides and grooms beginning their lives anew on this day, I conclude my Blessing Ceremony remarks. Thank you.