The World Culture activities are supposed to give hope for the future to the world by showing that young people all over the world can become like brothers and sisters. The central theme of the World Culture and Sports Festival is, "The Blessing." For that reason all of the activities to be held during this festival, such as academic conferences and cultural themes like ICUS are held with a central theme centered on the future ideal world. Many world-famous scholars will come to give lectures and the contents of the lectures are to be concentrated on this theme. The theme of the conference of the religious leaders is "Family and Marriage." At that conference, various different views of marriage may be presented but at the same time, the Unification views of marriage should be discussed and "The Blessing" should be conducted as practice of the Unification Church belief.

At the International PWPA Conference, which is held every two years is going to center on the theme "The Ideal Family." They will discuss the ideal family envisioned by Father. Likewise, AULA Summit Conference, the World Media Conference, and Artist Conference will participate in the arts festival. All of these have Ideal Family as the main theme. The outside people who come to this festival will be impressed deeply even by having a look at the various conferences and activities and events during this "World Culture and Sports Festival." They will be surprised to see the foundation established by Rev. Moon and his ideal and vision. However what will impress them the most, as the final climax, will be the Blessing.

The Blessing by Father is the very center of this whole festival. I hope you will keep this in mind in making necessary preparations.

50,000 Couples

At present, many intellectual people, leaders and parents are really worried about the situation of the young people -- their moral problem, family problem, and marriage problems. When they look at the fact that 50,000 couples are married at the Holy Wedding, then their misunderstanding, complaints, or criticism against Father will be clearly irradicated. That is why the number is important. Father is interested in the number in the coming blessing. We have to impress the people in the whole world, that there is no other way of building the future ideal world other than this Unification Church way. So, what Father most wants to proclaim to the world through this festival is that The future ideal society is going to be accomplished through the Blessing by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. That is the only way.

Many people are coming to the conference to participate in the conferences and sports activities and so forth; but, the most important purpose of the festival is the Blessing.

The Blessing means the Holy Wedding Ceremony or Holy Blessing -- it also means to receive historic grace. It is of historic importance that the schedule of the Blessing has been decided and announced in advance. The 1991 Blessing has several aspects of special historic importance, or blessings. For example, we can understand by simply thinking externally that this blessing is the first one in the history of the Unification Church Blessings in which the date of the blessing was decided one or two years in advance. Usually, when the Blessing is held, Father never announces the date in advance; he makes the decision only several days before. The primary reason for that is that Father's Blessing is to give new birth to people. Therefore, the birth date is not decided as to when the babies are born. Babies who are about to be born don't think about when they are going to be born. Therefore, it is important not to decide the date in advance.

Secondly, important providential events must be prepared always in a short period with short notice because Satan always makes a disturbance. Therefore, Father's strategy so far is to act and prepare unexpectedly so it is unexpected by Satan. The greater the importance of the event, the shorter the notice and preparation period. That has been Father's victorious strategy. However, this Father has announced this event a long time ago. Why? It is because Satan no longer has the power to oppose it. Because of the completely victorious foundation established by Father. It is in that sense that the Blessing this time has special grace.

The conditions of the 1991 Blessing are very light -- not so difficult. For past Blessings grace for individual people was given only on the very difficult and severe conditions in accordance with the Principle and after a certain period of individual indemnity. However, when it comes to this 1991 Blessing, conditions are very easy. First of all, there is no examination of the history of faith. The only thing that is required for the Blessing is to participate in a 40-day workshop, to accept God and True Parents to receive the Blessing and promise not to get divorced. That's all. This is historic. Because the Blessing of God is given not in accordance with a vertically difficult course -- Blessing is given so that It can expand horizontally and limitlessly. This has been unthinkable until now. How the Blessed families develop is directly related with the destiny of the Unification Church.

What is going to happen from now on if people can get blessed so easily? I thought about it in various ways but I came to realize that Father must be worried more than anyone about the consequences of this Blessing -- many times more than myself. And yet Father made this great decision with such confidence and has given us the commandment to make preparations. There must have been certain reasons for Father's confidence. What were they? There were two main points as to the background of the Blessing this time.

First of all, the right to give the Blessing is exclusively the right of the Messiah which means that Satan cannot complain no matter how the Blessing is given. In the beginning, the Blessings were difficult because Satan was in the position to make strong accusations. Satan was always opposed to the Blessing because the Blessing gives new life of God to people. Therefore, Satan was intensely opposed and accused. He examines conditions very severely. But, now that Father has achieved a worldwide, substantial victory, Satan has no condition to make accusations -- even if the Blessing is given easily to the people who come from our home towns. No matter how the Messiah gives the Blessing, Satan is not in the position to make any complaint or accusation. This Blessing is given on the victorious foundation of our True Parents, so, we must have confidence in ourselves.

Secondly, although our activities are still far from the level of the expectation of God and True Parents, still, through our worldwide activities of the Unification Church, can influence the people around us, by showing our own families. So, people will say, "In this world, in this society where there are so many problems such as family breakdown and divorce, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, and so forth, under the present circumstances or so many difficult problems, indeed Unification Church families are wonderful." We can testify to the Unification family automatically. Then by showing to them the wonderful aspects of our families, people will come to be interested in finding out what is the secret of this Unification family. Is there any secret? What do they actually believe? What makes them so wonderful? In this way, we should be able to testify to the greatness of the Unification teachings. So, we have to really be a witness at this level before August of 1991.

The time has come when we should testify to the whole world about the greatness of the Blessing. We have to testify to the world that the Unification Church Blessing can become the model of marriage of the future ideal world. The Blessing should be the Model of Marriage of the Ideal World. The social situation and family problems will become worse throughout the world. Even in Asian countries and the Soviet Union and in the Middle East family problems, divorce problem, juvenile delinquency ethical, and moral problems are becoming widespread. The situation will become worse and more serious.

Therefore, people who have children will become more serious to find out how to solve these problems. Even young people and students who are conscientious will become more serious in thinking how I should get married under such circumstances of the present day world. So, in Korea, CARP has been propagandizing in regards to Father's instruction on the university campuses by putting posters under the theme, "What is the Ideal Family Like," or "What is the Blessing by God?" I heard that young people and students would gather to the posters and start a discussion.

When CARP members hold lecture meetings or discussions under the theme such as Divine Principle, or ideology, thought, philosophy, then students are not necessarily interested, or the meeting becomes more intense and many complaints are expressed. But when meetings are held under the theme of marriage, then young people become more interested and the atmosphere also becomes more really bright because all young people are interested in marriage and family even though they don't know about the Blessing. When the meetings are held, students come, then our CARP members Introduce the Unification Church Blessing by showing pictures. Then people become very positive. They respond very positively. I think this kind of thing should be done in Japan as well because people who think they have their own ethical standard, but they are not confident as to how good their ethical standard is. How do they make judgement of their standard? When there is an opportunity to discuss those things, they become more involved. To those people, we should tell them that Unification Church Blessing is really serves as a model for building the future ideal world. The festival in 1991 has that kind of meaning.

Each one of the Blessed family should send three persons as candidates for the Blessing. Let's bring young people of your tribe and relatives to the Blessing. From now on I suppose the Unification Church will have a different way of going. In other words, this kind of festival may be held regularly -- every three years, for example and the schedule of the Blessing also will be announced in advance. Preparations can be made during the preparation period. In order to prepare candidates for the Blessing, not only 40-day workshops, but 70-day workshops or 120-day workshops or night school or weekend workshop or some kind of necessary credit can be fulfilled. This kind of program should be decided and all those who complete those programs will be given a diploma. In that way, those who have a diploma will be eligible for the Blessing. That kind of thing will be conducted from now on.

This is very good opportunity for us to fulfil our responsibility as the tribal Messiah because we were told by Father that each individual of a Blessed family must have three Blessing candidates. This is the best way, for us to send young members of our own tribe and relatives.

The reason to bring your relatives or members of your tribe is that although young people seem to be experienced (seem to know everything), in reality when they get married and start family life, they face many difficulties. Even if our members have a long history of faith, they find married life difficult. So, the Blessing candidates this time must face many difficulties. So, if they face difficulties they may feel like getting divorced but that is very serious. We have to prevent them from getting divorced. Because if the young people have relatives like us in the Unification Church, they will say, "because my uncle or my aunt introduced me to the Blessing or the Unification Church, I should not get divorced because I should not betray the expectations of my uncles and aunts." That kind of relationship serves as the "brake" to prevent them from getting divorced. So, since deep faith or a long history of faith is not expected for Blessing candidates, it is best for the young people to have a relationship with older, experienced members of the Unification Church. Also, this time it will also be necessary to make some external condition for the candidates so that they will absolutely never get divorced later.

Secondly, if the candidates are made up of our tribes and relatives, then there is no other way but to teach them the Divine Principle centering on the problem of life. And then after education and indoctrination, we should let them participate in the Blessing. Father says that those Blessing candidates should pledge that they will not get divorced after the Blessing. So, Father instructed us to ask the candidates to write a pledge and sign the pledge that they will not get divorced. And, they should pledge that if they get divorced they will pay, as a penalty, an enormous amount of money. This kind of contents should be included in the pledge to be signed by the candidates. This kind of thing may be for the first time in the history of the Unification Church Blessing.

Once we do this, young people will realize that the Blessing is a serious matter. Father thinks like this: In the future, when this kind of festival is held two or three times, certain traditions will automatically have been established. But, until that time, certain external "brakes" or preventive measures were necessary. I am now considering some kind of declaration or pledge to be signed by all the candidates.

In the past, there was a Blessing only by pictures, but this time pictures alone are not enough because if the Blessing is given only by pictures, then later there will be complaint saying "I did not go to the Blessing." This time, everybody must come for the Blessing. That is the instruction by Father. Still, we have to do that to make an impact on the world. We have to produce many candidates as soon as possible.

VIP's from all over the world shall attend the Blessing to be held on August 27. The basic schedule is that activities are held during the period from August 23 through August 30. The middle day of the period is August 27, which is when the Blessing (the Holy Wedding Ceremony), is to be held. From now on, we have to pray that it win not rain on that day. In Korea, at that time, it is going to be during the rainy season. We believe in the power of God, so I believe we can make it. But, in case it should rain on that day, the Blessing may be changed to one day earlier or one day later, depending upon the weather. But, I believe we can do it. At the Blessing, Holy Wedding, many VIP's from all over the world are invited to attend it. It will be very wonderful. That is the reason why the PWPA convention the World Religious Conference, the ICUS conference, and many other conferences are held around this period; although the date of the conference are different. Half of those activities are held before the Blessing, and half of them are held after the Blessing. Those who come to attend the conference held in the early part, should remain until the Blessing, and those who are scheduled to attend the activities to be held after the conference, after the Blessing should come earlier in time for the Blessing. That is the basic schedule.

On Dec. 8, a Blessing Committee meeting was held, inviting Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak. On that occasion, important instructions were given with regard to the candidates for the Blessing.

1. With regard to the age of the candidates and also with regard to singles who have been divorced or of singles who have a history of getting divorced. Both men and women, male and female Blessing candidates of age above 21 years old and below 40 years old as of August 22, 1991. Among those candidates who are included this age range, those who were married but divorced, they should complete the legal divorce procedure and they should be cleared of the relationship with the former spouses. Only those who have completed the divorce procedure and have terminated the relationship with their former spouses, can be recommended as Blessing candidates. However, those candidates who were once married, may be treated separately from regular candidates who have never been married.

2. About the church membership registration procedure, for the Blessing candidates. The Blessing candidate may complete the Unification Church membership registration. Therefore, those who want to be considered as Blessing candidates should complete the necessary registration procedures by the time of the examination as to whether they are eligible or not.

3. With regard to the women candidates over 41-years of age -- those women over 41-years of age including those who have never been married, and those who were married but divorced. They should be recommended as Blessing candidates if they have found or they have established at least one main candidate for the Blessing. This is because there definitely is a smaller number or male candidates in this age group for women over 41 years of age; therefore, those women over 41 years of age should have found at least one male member who can also be a Blessing candidate. However, those women over 41 years of age who have found at least one male member may not necessarily be Blessed with the male whom they have found. There is much possibility that they will be blessed with another person. Therefore, please guide those women that they should make efforts to find male members who are going to be blessed with other people.

4. With regard to the already married Blessing candidates, under 40 years of age already married but those who are going to be Blessed. There is much possibility that those already married Blessing candidates whose wives are below 40-years of age will be requested to participate in the joint international holy wedding ceremonies. Therefore, those women should prepare the necessary wedding dress for the Holy Wedding ceremony.

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