Sun Jin Moon’s Memorial Service Message

At the Memorial Service for True Parents’ Children who Ascended to the Spirit World on March 29, 2015 at the Hannam dong International Training Center, Sun Jin Moon, President of FFWPU International, delivered the following message.

Beloved members of the True Family and close relatives. Beloved Blessed Central Families.

It is my honor and privilege to warmly welcome each one of you who have gathered here today for this memorial service in honor of the precious children of our True Parents who have ascended to the spiritual world.

We stand together in this holy place and on this solemn occasion as one family under our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents and as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification worldwide.  

When we meditate on the fact that five of True Parents’ children have already ascended, we cannot begin to fathom the heart of sorrow and the outpouring of tears that were shed by True Parents. This is the same heart that our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents have for each one of us and indeed for all 7 billion people on this earth.

Many of you are parents and have raised your own children. In this way you know something of True Parents’ own heart. Furthermore, if you have experienced the loss of even one child, you surely have felt unspeakable loss and excruciating pain. You must ache and long for a day of reunion. That longing continually pulls at your deepest heartstrings.

Now, if you multiply that heartache times 14 you get a glimpse of True Parent’s eternal, unconditional love and suffering heart. And, if you can understand that level of longing, just imagine Heavenly Parent’s heart, suffocating under the weight of losing and longing for reunion with all 7 billion of God’s children. It is this anguished parental heart of our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents that we, as filial children, must liberate.

Most importantly and essentially, we must come together as one family to restore the woeful reality of separated parent and child relationships. I am sure you recognize that such divisions within my own family are a source of great anguish to our True Parents.

That is why we must come together as one and, on that foundation, work together to reunite the whole human family, building countless bridges of reconciliation throughout the world. In this way, we can create a world of complete harmony, peace, joy, and absolute true love.

I am sharing these thoughts with you so that we can grow to build a better environment for our collective future. We do not want our children and future generations to have to go down a path of suffering and indemnity.

Let us work to usher in a new age; one characterized by loving blessed families who restore the true parent and child relationship, and who fulfill the four realms of heart. Let us create beautiful blessed families who dwell in love and joy as our Heavenly Parent originally intended. Aju!

It is extremely difficult to share this content. However, this is the suffering course of indemnity that my family, and even many early Unificationists and their families have experienced. Two of my dear elder brothers, one precious younger brother, and an elder sister who passed in childhood are those we honor and memorialize today. It would be an impossible task to properly and adequately account for the depth of heart and mind that characterized each one of my precious siblings.

However, I do hope I am able to help you understand, even in some small way, the agonizing path that all True Parents’ family members have walked, and continue to walk up until this day. These are not easy things to speak about and, in any case, I am already a shy and tearful public speaker. Still, I hope I can muster the composure to convey something of the significance of each of our True Parents’ children that we honor today. For each one had their own course, and each one has their unique story, filled with moments of tremendous sacrifice, passion, true love, heart and soul, strength and bravery, and filial piety. Each one has a legacy that still endures.

I have so many personal experiences with my siblings. I grew up with them. As brothers and sisters, we loved, laughed, fought, cried, and shared each moment of joy and sorrow in the midst of almost indescribable complexity. On the one hand, it would require volumes to tell the story of each one of these sacred children who ascended. And, on the other hand, no words can do justice to the lives they endured and sacrificed.

If True Mother’s life is like the mysterious depths of the ocean, then perhaps I can compare our existence in those days to life on a deserted island. We often felt so remote, as though lost in the vast span of the sea. Our mother surrounds us but we cannot hold her. We are left stranded on the shore of a tiny lump of sand, not ever recorded as even a speck on a map. Separated from our homeland, from our parents, and from civilization, we are quarantined in a harsh environment inhabited by poisonous snakes and insects, and with shark infested seas, facing the unforgiving glare and burn of the tropical sun, and the inevitable tropical storms. The land is only sand. We search for pure water and nourishment, but are left dehydrated and starving for love. The unpredictable terrain, sharp-edged rocks, thorns, twisted bushes, muddy swamps, surround us. In the midst of all this, our hearts continually and relentlessly cry out for us to be reunited with our family and to find our way home; to survive at all costs until the day of rescue. In many ways this is how life felt for our elders in Korea in Cheongpadong Headquarters Church and the younger ones born in America in East Garden.

Many people think East Garden is a mansion, and that True Parents’ family has everything.  However, without True parental love it is like a deserted island. In those days, the only time we caught a glimpse of True Parents was at the door of the car opening or closing, taking them away to carry out their pledge and their sworn responsibility to bring about world peace. Even when they were home they spent all the time with the blessed family members. We lingered around but felt almost like ghosts, unable to reach for them.

Countless celebrations with hundreds of people were held on an almost daily basis, some even celebrating our birthdays. But, it was almost as if we did not exist. Following the singing of a song, we were whisked away as the celebration or meeting carried on. It was as if a huge cruise ship of singing, happy families were drifting by with our parents visible in the distance, but our voices could not be heard as we called out to our parents and the ship passedoff into the sunset.

That was just one picture of the loneliness we often felt at East Garden. I can’t imagine what my older siblings went through in Cheongpadong Headquarters Church.

I heard stories from my elders about those early days. I cannot really imagine what it must have been like to have to grow up during those early years in Korea. There was no running water or electricity. There was poverty, in a country still recovering from the devastation of war and displacement. Then on top of that to have to share your parents all the time and not always understanding why. Living in a small church teeming with, shall we say, Unificationists still learning about perfection. And, in those early years, even our mother was challenged by her own course of indemnity.

When I think of my eldest brother as a small child having to try to live up to so many expectations—to fill the shoes of the messiah and bring about world peace—while in the midst of such a difficult environment. What a daunting task for anyone, let alone a stranded young child.

When I see the old black and white photos showing the innocent faces of my siblings my heart cannot help but be moved. Each precious child would eventually be called to face so many trials and tribulations, as direct descendants and physical children of our saviors and True Parents, true family and True Mother.

For this reason, I can proudly say of all of them that they were courageous, humble, filial, and absolute in faith, love and obedience, even in the most impossible of environments.

We understand that it was necessary, according to the principle of restoration through indemnity, for True Parents to love the Cain-type children more than the Abel children.  Even though our parents wanted to hold on to each one of us, and to spend every moment of the day with us, they too were going through the ring of fire, paying indemnity by loving the Cain-type children first and foremost.

Even our True Mother, after each birth, had to attend the members, rather than nursing her own children. I can’t begin to imagine the suffering course she endured. Think about it. She was a bride at 18 years of age, and then gave birth to 14 children, one after the other, while also attending True Father in his never ending public mission. Who could endure such as course?

How much longing and sorrow must have filled her heart. Such a young girl, and yet she had to grieve and agonize over having her children offered up, unable to embrace them fully in her loving arms.

When True Parents observe the course of their own sons and daughters and see how many of us have stumbled on the way or drifted in the wrong direction, surely their hearts are filled with pain.  Surely they cry out, wishing they could have raised us up themselves and protected us from harm.

Experts tell us that the early years of life are the most important in terms of our formation. This is the time when the parent and child should bond together in secure attachment. This attachment gives a child the strength, stability, and the foundation to grow up healthy and strong. How painful must have been the heart of True Parents and their family that this parent and child relationship had to be interrupted and suspended for the sake of the providence.

I know many of our elder Unificationists were also asked to go witnessing and leave their children behind. I can appreciate the pain you endured. And I can empathize with all your children. The parents and children alike all paid indemnity for the sake of world peace, for the sake of building the Kingdom of Heaven, and Cheon Il Guk.

This was a noble sacrifice. I have the greatest respect for all who endured those early years. To achieve the ideal, countless sacrifices were made by many blessed families. We should bow our heads with the deepest honor, and pay respect to all of those who dedicated their lives and their families to the liberation of our Heavenly Parent and the whole human family.  

If we understand restoration through indemnity, we can only have a sincere heart of gratitude toward those who have gone before us. If we think of those who serve on the frontline, especially True Father, our elder children of True Parents’ family and Unificationist family members who have ascended, and we look towards True Mother who single-handedly holds high the torch that lights the way for us on this earth, we cannot help but feel absolute gratitude. We cannot help but have a heart to serve and honor the lives of our heroic parents, brothers and sisters, and children, who gave their lives for the sake of building one family under God.

We must not let their memory and legacy be lost. We should treasure them as saints and patriots. Their lives were dedicated to bringing about a world of true love and harmony. We should always honor their lives, and we should always honor their hopes and dreams, and the ideals they lived and died for.

Every being goes through the stages of growth: formation, growth, and perfection. If we can learn from those who went before us, we can create a more ideal environment for future generations.

Then, with each generation, we can strengthen the good environment and eliminate the conditions which give rise to bad environments. In this way we can learn to create a more ideal environment for all of our descendants. That is my hope, to go over the layers of indemnity to a path of ideal growth and perfection, which connects us all together as one family under our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents with perfected parent/child/sibling/couple/children and family relationships.

There is so much more I would like to share about our amazing brothers and sisters. There is so much we can learn from their history. I hope today you could get some glimpse of that early difficult environment. I hope that each of you can grow more ideal, loving parent-child relationships in your own families, now that we are in the completed testament and Cheon Il Guk era. May we gratefully learn and honor our past and synergize and create a more joyful, loving, peaceful future! AJU!

I thank you for attending this very special memorial service. Thank you for your loyal and loving hearts, and for your care for our ascended family members. May Heavenly Parent always protect and bless each one of you and your precious families. Let us all work together to achieve this dream, of one peaceful world under our Heavenly Parent.

Thank you very much.