True Family Values Message

Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP) International President, Prof. Yeon Ah Moon, delivered the following address on behalf of True Mother at the 20th anniversary celebration for the True Family Values Ministry on December 12, 2015 in Las Vegas.

Respected ladies and gentlemen from home and abroad. Beloved leaders who have strived to establish true family values. The fulfillment of Heavenly Parent’s ideal of creation is rooted in family values. However, we see that those values are rapidly deteriorating. It was in order to firmly establish true family values and fulfill Heavenly Parents’s will to establish one family under God, that my late husband, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and I began our providential work in the USA in 1971. Since that time, we have devoted ourselves to advocate true family ideals and God’s.

Heaven especially prepared and blessed the US, so we can become a pillar of the global providence of restoration. However, my husband and I can see the tragic deterioration of family values in America. Therefore, in 1996, my husband and I invited more than 5,000 religious leaders from all over America to Washington, D.C. to awaken the nation, teaching them about the absolute centrality of true family values. The content of this education program was to inspire the clergy, who had gathered on that occasion, to resolve to participate in a great movement that could save America by restoring true family values centered on God, our Heavenly Parent.

I know that many of you who are seated here today have dedicated yourselves to this great endeavor. It is through your devotion, your efforts through these many years, that the movement has grown and that now we are able to celebrate this meaningful 20th anniversary. I’d like to offer my heartfelt gratitude for your tremendous work. I’d also like to congratulate today’s award recipients.

We are born in the bosom of the family and we grow within the family. The family is our origin, our starting point, our school of love. The universal truth and values embedded in the family transcend religion, culture, race and nationality. Our Heavenly Parent’s ideal of creation when He created Adam and Eve as the first human ancestors was for them to fulfill His commandments; namely to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion over creation. However, due to the first Fall of the human ancestors, our Heavenly Parent’s ideal of creation was unfulfilled. As a result, our Heavenly Parent was unable to experience the happiness of true love within an ideal family. Furthermore, throughout the course of fallen human history, true family values were trampled on swept away into oblivion.

If we consider the history of the rise and fall of civilizations, we observe the decline of family contributes to the decline of civilizations. For example, we can generally agree that Western civilization traces to Hebraism and Hellenism. As great as these traditions are, they tended to emphasize the individual more than the family. They did not find a clear vision for ideal family, nor a forceful declaration of true family values rooted in Heavenly Parent’s ideal of creation. Eventually as Western civilization increasingly raised individualistic ideals and philosophies, a culture centered on individualism emerged. Contrary to God’s will, the basic unit of all relationships in society and the nation was not believed to be the family. Instead, it became the individual. All relationships, including those between parents and children, came to be defined as a kind of legal or contractual relationship, similar to which that exists between a ruler and citizens.

This was a grave error. Once the relationship between parents and children is fundamentally in terms of a contractual relationship, involving personal interests of the parents and children, parent and child relations can come to not be understood in the terms of heavenly morality, but rather on the terms of human morality. Today, the human family is divided and the throes of war are at every level. We’re fighting with every living being and creation, arming ourselves against eco wars, religious wars, territorial wars, political wars, racial wars, community shootings making our backyard, our hometown, into a war field.

When we witness these heinous crimes against the human family, we are heartbroken and can’t empathize with the devastating pain of God’s heart. Anyone can say that the world we live in today is not an ideal world where we all live in peace and harmony with our global brothers and sisters as one family under God. I believe that the root cause of these problems lies in the loss of true family values. The US was blessed by our Heavenly Parent with the ideal mission of establishing not only one nation under God, but one family under God.

Today, this ideal is alive even though the erosion of family values is threatening the very foundation of this nation. Divorce rates exceeding 50% are directly undermining the sanctity of marriage and family. Unprecedented liberal issues about sex amongst teenagers and free sex among young people are seriously shaking the core of this nation. Aware and concerned of this sad reality, Rev. Moon and I answered Heaven’s call to come and heal an ailing America. In 1971, Rev. Moon left his homeland to come to America. Throughout his life, he devoted his life to restore America’s moral and spiritual roots in order to revive this great nation. As he toured the US, from shore to shore, Rev. Moon boldly proclaimed, “God has sent me in the role of the doctor, the role of the firefighter. That is why I have come to America.”

Beloved leaders, what kind of country is the nation where you were born? What kind of nation are you living in? What dreams did your ancestors hold dear when they were on the shores? What ideals did they strive to practice and cultivate in this nation? When the Pilgrim fathers sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, under the most adverse conditions, surviving deadly storms and various setbacks, their only ray of hope was God, their Heavenly Parent. After arriving and settling on the new continent, almost half the Pilgrims died of starvation in the first year. Yet, despite the famine, the Pilgrims thought about future generations and they stored seeds in anticipation for the next growing season rather than eating them.

During these times, their only hope was to connect to Heavenly Parent. Later, the Founding Fathers of this nation risked their lives and fought a David versus Goliath battle for independence against Britain with their hope and trust in God and Heavenly Parent. In their hearts and minds, God was everything. Their resolve and determination to attend Heavenly Parent was truly great and holy. During the war for independence, Britain was a global superpower. The king and British soldiers united and fought for their empire; however, the Founding Fathers loved God their Heavenly Parent above all. They united and fought to advance God’s will. Their sincerity and sacrifice moved the governing of Heaven. As a result, our Heavenly Parent answered the call of his sons and daughters, who were fighting bravely in this great conflict. As a result, the United States of America, the land of religious freedom was born.

America boldly showed the world that, despite having people of many different languages and cultures, it was possible to build one nation under God, and eventually one family under Heavenly Parent. Unfortunately, the holiness that once characterized America has fallen into a decline. Influenced by self-centered rise, a materialistic culture and challenges of the weakening of spirituality and morality, America has grown increasingly secular. As a result, its core foundation has been shaken. Rev. Moon could see that God has become distant in the hearts of people. Even in families, in schools, some churches, it had been difficult to feel Heavenly Parent’s loving presence. God was leaving America.

Looking back, it only seemed like yesterday when, 50 years ago, Rev. Moon and I walked down Manhattan’s 5th Ave with tears in our eyes, and felt that God, the Heavenly Parent, was leaving America. I vividly remember us crying our hearts out when we held onto Him in desperation. With that heart, we pledged our absolute determination to lead a spiritual awakening in this nation. Beloved leaders, what were the founding ideals of America? What ideals of Christianity led to the birth of the US? Two thousand years ago Jesus was born on this earth as the begotten son and Messiah. What were his ideals and what was his mission?

Jesus’s mission was to establish the kingdom of God and to build one great, big global family under Heavenly Parent. As the only begotten son, he was to meet the only begotten daughter prepared by Heaven, hold the marriage of the lamb, and form a family, tribe, people, nation and world that would lead to the fulfillment of God’s original ideal of creation. This world would be one united world with no divisions of culture, race and nationality. It will be a world where Heavenly Parent could fully love and live in oneness with True Parents and all humanity as His beloved sons and daughters. Tragically, due to the faithlessness of the people at that time, Jesus faced great resistance and persecution and was unable to meet the only begotten daughter Heaven had prepared for him. Therefore, he could not hold the marriage of the lamb and the position of True Parents could not be established at that time. Even though Jesus, together with the Holy Spirit, brings spiritual salvation to humanity, the ideal of True Parents, the ideal of the king and queen of peace had yet to be fulfilled.

This is why Jesus had to promise, even as he hung on the cross, that he would come again. Jesus’s profound anguish was expressed when he said in Matthew 23:37, “…how often I have longed to gather your children together as hens gather their chicks under their wings, and you were not willing.” These words still resonate deep within my heart.

Beloved leaders, my late husband, Rev. Moon, and I clearly understood the suffering and sorrowful situation of Heaven and Jesus, whose death on the cross was not God’s original will. We therefore wanted to comfort and uplift Jesus as he should have been in his lifetime. In 2003, we organized a program in Jerusalem to honor and crown Jesus as the king of peace. We wanted to restore his having been misunderstood and rejected 2,000 years ago. Also, since the cross was a sorrowful reminder that he was not received by the people of his time, we also engaged in a global movement to take down the crosses in the churches. However, these endeavors alone did not completely free Heavenly Parent and Jesus from the historical pain and sorrow. In fact, we now understand that 2,000 years of Christianity has been the providential course to eventually find the only begotten daughter, fulfill the marriage of the lamb, and establish the long awaited position of True Parents.

Dear leaders, in 1960 Rev. Moon and I, standing in the presence of God in the position of the only begotten son and only begotten daughter prepared by Heaven, received the Holy Marriage Blessing as the True Parents. Since that time, by the Holy Wedding, our lives have been focused on following goals to liberate Heavenly Parent who is the cosmic True Parent, restore His lost position as our Parent, and to save the fallen and lost human beings from the realm of death and suffering, and return humanity to the bosom of Heavenly Parent. In order to achieve this ideal, Rev. Moon and I had to overcome unspeakable hardships and innumerable difficulties. Overcoming all these obstacles, we led and carried humanity which had fallen into a state of being like an orphan with no parents along to the path of salvation.

The sayings, “seven failures will lead to success on the eighth” and “risk your life and invest yourself entirely to the cause” accurately characterized the course of the life that we have led. True Father came to this earth as the only begotten son of Heavenly Parent, and he met me, the only begotten daughter who Heaven had prepared for 6,000 years. Together, we strove each day of our lives to embrace all humanity with a heart of True Parents. However, this meant that our life together would never be stable, or serene. It is akin to sailing on a vast ocean during a deadly storm. Nevertheless, Rev. Moon, as the True Father, completely fulfilled his mission, and prior to his ascension he earnestly asked and entrusted all humanity the mission to fulfill their own responsibility as heavenly Tribal Messiahs.

Beloved leaders, at the time of my husband’s third ascension memorial, standing before Heavenly Parent and the entire Unification community, this is what I promised True Father: “True Father, from now on please do not worry. We will absolutely fulfill our responsibility. Please, be free and ascend to your eternal resting place, to comfort God, the Heavenly Parent, who has been lonely until now.”

Beloved leaders, you are witnesses to the kind of life our couple has led, and in order to realize the will of Heavenly Parent, you know the sincere efforts we have made to save and revive this nation that has been blessed by Heaven. I am certain that your truthful eyes and your truthful ears have helped you understand for whom and for what ideals we dedicate our lives.

Beloved leaders, let us stand up for our Heavenly Parent who, for 6,000 years of human history, has anxiously searched for His lost children. Let us remember the Pilgrim Fathers who, with their hearts of the children desperately seeking for their Heavenly Parent, travelled thousands of miles across treacherous Atlantic Ocean and settled in America during the harshest of winters. Let us remember the people who came to this country from all over the world in search of religious freedom. Let us remember how they overcame persecution and suffering, so that America could take root as a land of faith. Let us remember their ardent devotion and sincere faith and their lofty aspirations. God, our Heavenly Parent, abundantly blessed America as a pillar of His providence. Let this beautiful nation once again attend Heavenly Parent. Let us revive and transform America into nation where ideals of family are alive, a nation where Heavenly Parent can freely move, dance and sing together with us.

If you devote yourselves to fulfilling this goal, Heaven and the unified nation of Cheon Il Guk will certainly remember each and everyone of you. I pray that love and blessings of Heavenly Parent be with you and your families. May Heavenly Parent truly bless America. Aju. Thank you.