In this issue of UNews you can read an article by Mr. Peter Ross and an open letter I wrote to President Ramos of the Philippines. These explain how the Unification Church is at the center of a storm of controversy in the Philippines. At issue is the nature of the marriage Blessing. Is the Blessing a sacred sacrament, the foundation for eternal true families and the best hope for peace in this world? or is it a mail-order scam to spirit Filipino women out of their country? Well, the readers needn't tax their brains guessing what my opinion is.

But before getting into that, let us reflect upon the question, why would such an issue arise now? After all, the Blessing has been a well-known public practice of the Reverend and Mrs. Moon for some thirty-six years now. It has grown from a ceremony involving thirty- six couples on a side street in Seoul, Korea, into an international event broadcast by satellite to hundreds of locations and involving some 360,000 couples. That's a multiplication of 10,000 in thirty-six years. Hmmm . . . at that rate . . .

You and I can figure out the implications of the numbers alone, and so can the leaders of this world's governments and religions. They never bothered much with the Blessing in the past, because it did not seem significant to their practical interests. Things are changing in that regard. The Blessing is having an impact.

So it is not surprising that somewhere, in some office, someone would push the panic button. It happened in the Bureau of Immigration in the Philippines. I won't go into the details here; please see Mr. Ross's article. But it is of interest, to those who draw such connections, to note the fact that the son of said Bureau's director is a congressman pushing for the legalization of pornography in the Philippines.

This is the moral which the world should take. In the work of God, there is always a moral: good and evil always reveal themselves. On the one hand, people for pornography and against the Blessing. On the other hand, people for the Blessing and against pornography. The true liberation of women (the Blessing) versus the false liberation of women (the Playboy philosophy). The resurrection of marriage and the family versus the destruction of marriage and the family. From a distance, it is clear as a bell, and as the song says, God is watching us from a distance.

Since the Blessing now has implications for nations, it is to be expected that national level reactions would take place, and that the issues raised by the Blessing would be worked out on the level of a national government. In the overall scheme of things, this is good. The Blessing must get an airing. The Blessing will be vindicated. Why? Because it is exactly what it claims to be. It is not hype. It is not puff. It is not religious propaganda or a spiritual power-play. It is the genuine article: God's granting of the grace by which the family is reborn.

It is too good to be true, really. For that reason, most people are unwilling to believe it. But looking deeper, I would point out three general reasons people would say "no" to God's disclosure of His pure love through the grace of the Blessing.

One response is: my marriage and family already have God's blessing. We're just fine as we are, we're blessed everyday. It sounds good, but reflect a moment on its implication: my family is fine; so what if the divorce rate is 60%, one-third of American children are born illegitimate and there are a million abortions a year? And how "fine"

is your family, really? Is the fire of Christ burning in your loins as you fly together with your spouse in perfect synchronicity, feeling the presence of the indwelling God, and the entire cosmos dancing in harmony with your love-making? I don't think so.

A second response is: what's this fairy-tale about God's blessing? Do you expect me to believe that? I used to believe in God's grace, but I was naive and I've grown up. Life is rough; it's just a go-round of chores and obligations, and if you find your little corner of security, that's "blessing" enough. As far as the large evil out there in the world, it will always be with us.

The third response is venomous anger, proferred by those who have staked their lives against God. Such people have an interest in impugning and destroying everything which claims to be of God, because they already destroyed God in their own hearts. Therefore, anything which might prove them wrong, and prove that God really exists, will reveal such people's damnation and they know it. Therefore they will blindly strike out at God's work.

Perhaps on another occasion we can consider responses to these three positions. I think my readers have an innate judgment concerning them already, however, without my elaboration.

Beyond this, the entry of the Blessing into the arena of national and international affairs does place a responsibility upon those promoting the Blessing to explain it to the public in a simple and straightforward way. Frankly, until 1992 the Blessing was a ceremony internal to the Unification Church. Members attended workshops and heard various lectures about the meaning of the Blessing. We had the general understanding of the Divine Principle through which to interpret the Blessing. Also, we were toughened by years of missionary struggle and dealing with persecution. We could handle just about anything, including a Blessing, and figure out for ourselves what was going on.

Actually, by the circumstance of its enclosure within the walls of the church, we UC members tended to assume that the Blessing was something which would be rather difficult for non-members to understand. We tended to think that if a person did not go through years of Unification missionary life, he or she could not, or, even worse, should not, receive the Blessing.

This all changed in 1992. In April of that year, Reverend and Mrs. Moon gave the Blessing of marriage to forty-two Muslim couples, who remained devout Muslims. That summer, the Moon family spoke throughout Korea and explained that the Blessing is open to people of all faiths.

On another occasion we should consider the theological and historical foundation for such a revolutionary transition, and also its implications. I believe that when historians look back, that transition will prove to have significance equal to the apostle Paul's opening the gospel to the gentiles.

If we do not tell the world exactly what the Blessing is, who can blame the world for being confused, anxious or, worse, apathetic about it? To that end, I devote the remainder of this essay to a brief introduction to the Blessing. This is a quasi-official explanation, which several of us, including Mr. Farley Jones, Dr. Andrew Wilson, Dr. Frank Kaufmann, Mr. Michael Inglis and others have worked on. It is not a final statement, but I think it is helpful. I hope that it will both inform you and inspire you to learn more about this wonderful gift from God.

The Blessing has important and unique features. 1. The Blessing sanctifies the conjugal union as the dwelling place of God's true love. 2. The Blessing opens the way to overcome selfishness in our marriages, become true parents and create true families. 3. The Blessing returns marriage to the public sphere, so that couples recognize that their marriages are necessary to the well-being of society. 4. The Blessing fosters world peace by linking couples as a global family under the parenthood of God.

The Holy Blessing has five steps, each with its own purpose and significance: the Chastening Ceremony, the Holy Wine Ceremony, the Holy Blessing, the Forty-Day Separation Period and the Three-Day Ceremony. It is important to understand and deeply receive the value of each step.

The Chastening Ceremony sets the condition to cleanse the sin between men and women. In this relationship, to one degree or another, we have all erred. So have our ancestors. In this ceremony, the husband and wife chasten each other three times from a position representing God. Through this we are forgiven for our personal and ancestral errors and offences. This simple act opens the door to God's forgiveness and grace, as well as being an occasion for the giving and receiving of a chastening and forgiveness with our beloved. This allows us to begin a new life of pure love.

God created man and woman to become true husbands and wives and to create ideal families through unselfish love. As we know from the biblical record, however, something went wrong in the beginning resulting in the first parents creating a dysfunctional, fallen family, separated from God's love, life and lineage. We all are descended from those false parents.

Through the Holy Wine Ceremony, we make the spiritual transition from the lineage of false parents to that of the True Parents. Through this ceremony, we are each conditionally restored to the position of "original man" and "original woman," in a sense Adam and Eve before the Fall. The love of God and the True Parents is represented in the Holy Wine. Taking the Holy Wine represents a renunciation of selfish love, and an eternal commitment to God, to one's spouse, and to one's descendants.

The officiator gives the Holy Wine to the woman. She bows to him and drinks half of it. She then gives the Holy Wine to her husband who bows to her and drinks the remainder. He bows and gives the empty cup to his wife who bows and returns it to the officiator.

The Holy Blessing is a simple and beautiful event. For many it is their wedding ceremony. For previously married couples it is a ceremony of re-dedication of their family to God.

The ceremony includes several traditional steps. One is a sprinkling of Holy Water. This represents the rebirth or renewal of the husband and wife together as a Blessed couple. Then there is an affirmation of vows. Here the couples pledge to consummate the ideal of the creation of God as an eternal husband and wife, to rear their children to live

up to the Will of God, and to love the people of the world as God does. Finally, rings are exchanged and the officiator offers a prayer and proclaims the participants husband and wife standing within the realm of God's original and eternal Blessing.

The forty days following your Blessing is an historical time period. Just as Jesus began his mission on the foundation of forty days of fasting, couples who have received the Blessing are encouraged to offer a period of sexual abstinence for a period of forty days after the Blessing.

Many couples have discovered from experience that the Separation Period can be a significant step in the process of transformation and renewal. Sexual abstinence is an honored religious tradition. On the spiritual level, problems are often worked out during the Separation Period. Moreover, the act of love itself takes on a new dimension of sacredness after offering the period of separation.

After the separation period, the couple together carry out the Three- Day Ceremony. This is the completion of sanctification, in which the couple is restored to the position of true husband and wife. Over a three day period, the wife gives rebirth to the husband from the position of mother and then receives him in the position of wife. Then in the position of father, he gives rebirth to his wife. Through this process, God breathes into the couple a new conjugal life.

The Blessing is not a quick-fix or cure-all. But it is a very special God-centered experience with hundreds of thousands of other couples around the world. If the building blocks of community are shared experience, shared values and shared vision, this Blessing and the global relatedness it engenders contributes in a vital way to the emergence of a new global community embodying the ideals of true love and peace.

This was only a brief introduction to the profound revelation of God's love for humankind available through the Blessing. Those serious about receiving the Blessing are encouraged to further prayer and study.

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