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H.J.H. Moon: Founder's Address to the International Leadership Conference
Written by Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, Co-Founder, Universal Peace Federation
Monday, February 10, 2014
Founder's Address to the International Leadership Conference
Seoul, Korea - February 10, 2014
Read by Julia H. Moon
As we know, foundations are extremely important. Architects and engineers know this very well, as do scientists, philosophers and any systematic thinker. Likewise the foundation of relationships is also extremely important. If we build on weak or insecure foundations, serious problems will inevitably follow. This principle applies in everything we do.
My beloved husband, Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, devoted his entire life of 92 years to establishing a secure foundation for a world of lasting peace centered on God, our Heavenly Parent. He worked tirelessly for this goal, and encountered and endured all manner of resistance and persecution. And yet he was not deterred.
Each and every day I give thanks to God, our Heavenly Parent, that my husband could fulfill his mission and that we can build on the foundation he established.
He understood that the ultimate foundation for a world of peace is God, our Heavenly Parent. Therefore alignment with the will of our Heavenly Parent is the foundation of peace. No matter what obstacles stand in our way, those who secure their foundation in God, our Heavenly Parent, will develop the capacity to open the way to a world of peace.
Although my husband, True Father, passed on to the heavenly realm in 2012, there is not a day that goes by when I do not feel his warm presence and loving guidance.
For more than 50 years, I stood by his side as he lived every moment of his life with an intense awareness of not only human suffering, but of God’s own suffering course.
He wanted nothing more than to liberate the suffering heart of our Heavenly Parent and the suffering hearts of all human beings. That was his mission. This is the mission of the True Parents. It is through the liberation of God’s heart that True Parents were able to establish Foundation Day last year.
Even though he is in the spirit world and I am here on this earth, the position of the True Parents remains unshaken.
The Foundation Day that we celebrate at this time is none other than the anniversary of the Founding Day of the nation of cheonilguk, God’s heavenly nation.
The one, unifying purpose and goal of our worldwide movement is to establish a nation of peace. We call this nation cheonilguk. This Korean word can be translated as a nation where “two become one.” In other words, cheonilguk is a nation where resentments and divisions of every kind are healed and overcome, resulting in harmony, cooperation and peace.
Following Foundation Day 2013, I announced the 2020 Vision, which is the vision of expanding the ideal of cheonilguk throughout the world.
The sponsoring and partnering organizations for this International Leadership Conference, the Universal Peace Federation, together with the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the Women’s Federation for World Peace, the Segye Times and The Washington Times Foundation have each dedicated themselves to playing a significant role in fulfilling this vision.
My beloved husband, True Father, understood peace as a profoundly spiritual concept.
Whenever he spoke, he shared an inspiring vision of the human family rising up together in love, and overcoming the barriers of nationality, race and religion.
He taught that peace describes a state of spiritual and physical harmony; an ideal state of being for the individual, the family, the society, the nation and the world. Whenever he used the word peace, he always thought first and foremost of God’s heart and God’s providence.
I encourage you to study my husband’s teachings.
If you study carefully, you will come to understand the way in which God works in human history. His teachings provide a roadmap to peace, one that helps us understand the correct path that we should follow.
As you know, more than anyone, our Heavenly Parent longs for joy, harmony and lasting peace for all his children, the whole human family. However, those hopes were dashed due to the Fall, which resulted in the tragic history of human selfishness and conflict that has continued until today.
As I look at our world today, I, too, can feel the pain that God must feel as he witnesses the ignorance, selfishness and sinfulness of human beings. It is especially painful for our Heavenly Parent to witness the degradation of marriage and family life, for the family was created to be the sacred and holy cornerstone of God’s original ideal.
God, our Heavenly Parent, created this world with a clear ideal in mind. At the very center of this ideal was the parent-child relationship, rooted in filial piety.
If we consider the biblical story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, we can understand that the root cause of the Fall was the failure of Adam and Eve, and the Archangel, to maintain absolute faith, love and obedience toward their Heavenly Parent, God.
Their faithlessness undermined God’s ideal of true love in the first marriage and the first family. This reality affected their relationship to each other as man and woman and their relationship to their children, giving rise to the longstanding historical pattern of Cain and Abel division that has plagued humanity up until the present time. As you recall, the first murder occurred within the first family, as the elder brother, Cain, killed the younger brother, Abel, who stood on God’s side.
For this reason, my husband consistently taught of the absolute centrality of both filial piety and true love in our life of faith. Only in this way can we reverse the effects of the Fall.
True peace begins with the attitude and practice of filial piety toward our Heavenly Parent. This basic virtue must then be combined with sexual purity before marriage and fidelity in marriage.
God created men and women to live as equal and eternal love partners and the family to be the “school of love and peace.”
This is why my husband and I, as the True Parents, initiated and performed the Holy Wedding Ceremonies, known as the Blessing, all over the world. The Blessing is an affirmation of God’s original ideal of true love and true family.
Throughout history our Heavenly Parent has guided human beings through religion to restore the ideal world of peace. At this time in history, lasting peace also requires harmony and cooperation among religions. Believers of all faith traditions should work together in love and respect, for the sake of fulfilling the will of our Heavenly Parent.
As we stand before God, we are not evaluated by our title or the name of our religion, but by the quality of our hearts, and by the quality of our efforts to serve God’s providence.
I know that each of you has great responsibilities and influence in your countries. I hope that you will take seriously what you will learn over the course of the next several days, and that you will take this message back to your countries and to your people.
Let me then leave you with four recommendations that I hope you will affirm and put into practice:
Please study the teachings of Father Moon, and come to know the heart of our Heavenly Parent, the origin of life, of love and of all truth.
Do your utmost to build a strong, stable, and loving marriage as husband and wife, and, on that foundation, dedicate yourself fully to the care and education of your children.
Apply the principle of living for the sake of others in all your endeavors, whether you are a government official, a religious leader, an educator, a media professional or an artist.
Always be aware that your life on this earth is temporary. After we complete our physical life, we will ascend to the spiritual world. In that place we are not measured by our wealth or power. We are measured simply by our capacity for true love and the extent to which we lived our lives on earth in service to God and humanity.
Please be assured that our representatives around the world stand ready to support and work with you in whatever way they can to advance the ideal of peace and human development in your nation.
Let us work together to build ideal families and nations, and let us join together as people, as nations, as religions, and as families to create cheonilguk, one family under God.
Thank you and God bless you, your families and your nations.