Hyung Jin Moon
March 21, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Seoul Korea
Today we are going to talk about "Sacred Love." Let's take a look at the World Scriptures about love. First we look at the Bible, at the book of Genesis 2:18:
"The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.'"
Looking at the Scriptures of Islam, in the Quran 46:15:
"We have enjoined on man kindness to his parents. In pain did his mother bear him, and in pain did she give him birth. The carrying of the (child) to his weaning is (a period of) thirty months."
Now we take a look at Judaism, the Talmud 30b:
"There are three partners in man: God, father, and mother. When a man honors his father and mother, God says, 'I regard it as though I had dwelt among them and they had honored me.'"
From Father's Words (Unificationism):
"The place where Adam and Eve become perfectly one in heart and body as husband and wife is also the place where God, the subject partner giving love, and human beings, the object partners returning beauty, become united. This is the center of goodness where the purpose of creation is fulfilled. Here, God, our Parent, draws near and abides within His perfected children and rests peacefully for eternity. This center of goodness is the object partner to God's eternal love, where God can be stimulated with joy for all eternity. This is the place where the Word of God is incarnated and brought to fulfillment. It is the center of truth and the center of the original mind which guides us to pursue the purpose of creation." From the Divine Principle, Principle of Creation 2.3.4.
We are going to read from Luke, now, 1:28-33:
"The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.'"
In this Bible quote, the angel Gabriel has come to Mary to tell her the good news that from her will be born the Lord Jesus. This baby, the Messiah, will be coming to be the savior of the whole word. The whole world was waiting for the Messiah. So, Mary went to her relatives Zachariah and Elizabeth and told them that she was going to have this special baby. The entire providential history was waiting for this baby, for Jesus' birth. All of the history of fallen mankind, all of the restoration that had come until that moment, was waiting for the birth of Jesus.
Now, Christians today consider Mary, the mother of Jesus, as having a very special position, especially for Catholics. Among the Christians, the Catholics honor Mary even more. She is the person that can be an intercessor to mankind, bringing them closer to the Son, to Jesus, who is the King and the Judge. She can help people come closer. That is the role, as intercessor. So, Jesus is in the position of King and Judge, the final Judge who can judge our lives absolutely, and the Holy Mother, Mary, can help sinful people to become closer to Jesus.
Within the Christian Church there are many names for Mary: sometimes they call her the Queen of Heaven, sometimes they call her the Mother of God, sometimes they call her the New Eve. If we look at 1 Corinthians 15:45, here, St. Paul describes Jesus as the Last Adam. So, Christians view Jesus as Adam and sometimes they also view Mother Mary as the new Eve. So there was a desire and a hope to see the new Adam and the new Eve. History has been looking for a new Adam and a new Eve. There are parts of Christianity that have been searching for the new Adam and Eve. This is very similar to the teaching in the Divine Principle: that the new Adam and Eve have to come.
The thing is, if we look at Mary as the new Eve there are some theological problems with this. Why? Because Adam and Eve were a husband and wife. Eve was the wife of Adam. They had children; they had three sons that we know about: Cain, Abel and Seth. This was the beginning of the history of mankind, Adam and Eve's family. But if we look at Jesus and Mary, they were not a husband and wife. Their relationship was the relationship of mother and child. Mary was the mother of Jesus, not the wife of Jesus. For thousands of years, Christians have been looking for the perfected Eve, the returning Eve. They were really yearning for this returning Eve. This is the mind and heart that was searching for the True Mother.
If we look at the Divine Principle we can understand the mission of the Messiah most completely. We understand that the Messiah has to become one with his bride. They have to become one, unite, and then bring children. In the Catholic Church, we see that the nuns are often considered as brides to Jesus. They have a spiritual marriage to Jesus as part of their vows.
Mother Teresa, too; she was also married to Jesus. She said, "I'm married! I'm married to Jesus!" So, in the Catholic Church the devoted nuns and priests have this kind of devotion to the church: that they are married to Jesus. If we look at Christian history they often call Jesus the bridegroom. So think about it, if there is a bridegroom then there should be a bride. If you want to have children, new birth for children, you have to have a bride and a bridegroom. You have to have parents. You can't have children just from the father. You need to have a father and a mother, a bridegroom and a bride. Only through this kind of relationship can you have a new family, a new race, a new nation. So we need to find not a mother and son, but we need to find a husband and wife. In this way we can establish a new lineage, a new race, a new world.
Let's look at the Gospels again. Mark 3:31-35:
"Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, 'Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.' 'Who are my mother and my brothers?' he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers!' Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.'"
In this story, Jesus denied his physical family. This was very embarrassing to them. He was surrounded by a lot of people. He didn't want to see his mother. His mother was asking him to go with her somewhere else. We are talking about the same Holy Mother, Mother of God, that the Catholics revere. But when she called him, he said, "No, I'm not going. I'm going to stay here with these people. These people who are following the will of God, these are my brothers and sisters. You are not my brothers and sisters. You are not my mother."
Think about this in the context of Jewish culture at that time. Filial devotion to parents is very important in the Jewish tradition. Children should honor their parents, should attend and take care of their parents. Like in Korea now, children should honor their parents. So, in the context of that Jewish tradition, for Jesus to say something like this to his mother, "Who is this woman? She is not my mother. The people in this room are my mother and my brothers;" for him to say that is a very embarrassing thing for his mother. So let's look at this story one more time, because in the Catholic Church, they really revere the mother Mary, Jesus' mother. If we look at this story, Jesus is denying his mother. Are the Catholics reading this story and saying, "This woman was not important; Mother Mary was not important; Jesus denied her, so we should deny her too"? Are they reading it that way? No. Nobody reads it that way. Despite this event, they love Mary, they adore Mary, they glorify Mary. They do not reject Mary as Jesus did in this story. We have to understand this.
Sometimes it happens that True Father also criticizes and says strong things to True Mother. In the same way that the Catholic Church refrains from criticizing Mary even though Jesus criticized her, it is very important that we also refrain from criticizing True Mother even if Father criticizes her. True Father's position is different from ours. If we see that Father is criticizing True Mother, we must support True Mother; we must sympathize with True Mother; we must console True Mother. We must love her even more. Why? At that moment, if we see Father criticizing True Mother, we have to understand the heart with which True Mother is receiving that criticism. True Mother is receiving that criticism in order to protect us from having to be criticized directly by True Father. She wants to protect the children from being scolded directly by Father. She wants to receive Father's anger so that the children do not have to receive the anger directly. She is taking the position of Mother to protect the children.
We have not looked at her correctly. We have thought we need to protect True Mother from True Father, but it's the opposite: True Mother is protecting us from the full strength of Father's criticism. True Mother has come to me sometimes in my room, and she says, "I'm sorry I didn't have time to spend with you. I was so busy with Father, I didn't spend time with you when you were young. I'm very sorry I wasn't a better mother for you." When Mother says this to me, I say, "No, Mother, please do not; we must apologize to you. We have complained about our suffering, but now we understand that your suffering has been so great. You have done everything to keep True Father from being attacked by Satan."
So whenever Mother comes to me and says, "I'm sorry, I wish I could have done better for you," I say, "Mother, absolutely, you do not need to apologize to me for anything! You do not have anything to apologize to me about. I need to apologize to you. I couldn't understand you. So many times I didn't understand you. I didn't understand what you were doing. I made things harder for you, too. I need to apologize to you; I need your forgiveness! We know that you were doing everything you could to protect True Father's course." Satan has tried so many ways to attack True Father. Satan has tried to tempt Father: beautiful women have tried to make Father fall in love with them. But through everything, True Mother was standing by True Father, supporting True Father, believing in True Father, praying for True Father. And because True Mother did that, True Father could overcome anything. He could be victorious no matter what Satan sent to him. So, True Father and True Mother, together, are our victorious True Parents. Together!
It's so easy for us to forget. We forget what path True Mother has been through. We look at her now, she is in the position of queen with Father, but that's not where she started. After her Blessing, for three years she was not even allowed to use the front door of the house. For three years she was really in the position of absolutely servant of servant. She had not only to take care of True Father, but she had to take care of everybody else who was attending Father as well. Lots of people were jealous of her when she got blessed to Father. They criticized her and made her life miserable. She had to go a very humble course for many years. From that position of servant of servant, with nothing, no support, she started. The other members who were jealous of her attacked her psychologically, made her life difficult, but she persevered. She kept her faith, she kept her mind, she prayed, she received all those difficulties; she forgave all the people who made things difficult for her. This is our True Mother. She was victorious!
Some people sometimes tell me, "It would be nice if Mother would stay all the way to the end when Father is speaking. Why does she leave early?" But when people say this, and think this it's because they have never seen Mother's daily life. They don't know what her life is like! Think about it! Only if you don't know her life is it possible to say that. For fifty years she has been attending Father more closely than anyone else, with not a day off, with not an hour off, with not a break. She has been serving Father for fifty years with complete devotion. Let's say we go to Hoon Dok Hae one morning, and it's four hours, it's five hours, it's six hours -- it's hard for us to concentrate! We're tired! It's hard for us to persevere for six hours! But think about it: True Mother is like at Hoon Dok Hae every day, twenty-four hours a day! For fifty years with Father! There is no comparison between this and what we are doing! Absolutely no one has attended Father the way True Mother has attended him. If we open our spiritual eyes, and we look at Mother, we can absolutely see that she is the completed and perfected Eve. (Aju!)
Let's take a look at the Gospel of John. John 2:1-9:
"On the third day a wedding took place at Cana, in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother came to him and said, 'They have no wine.' 'Dear mother, why do you involve me?' Jesus replied. 'My time has not yet come.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.' … Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water'; so they filled them to the brim. Now he told them, 'Now draw out some of the water and give it to the master of the banquet.' They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water and it had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew."
In this story, we can see something very important, because this is one of the few stories in the Bible where we see Jesus and his mother together in the same story. There are only three or four places in the Bible where we see Jesus and Mary together. The other thing that is very important about this story is that it is the first public miracle that Jesus performed, turning the water into wine. In this story we can see Mary in the role of intercessor. She comes to Jesus on behalf of the people at the wedding to say there is no more wine. She comes to ask for help from Jesus, for the other. But how does Jesus respond? He says, "Why are you involving me? What does this have to do with me? What have you got to do with me?" And as we mentioned before, she is his mother; he must honor her! There is no appropriate time in this culture for him to speak to her like that. He should honor her. So how can he turn around and say, "Why is this my business? Why are you bothering me?" You cannot say this to your mother.
Can you imagine if I were to say to Mother, "True Mother, what have you got to do with me?" We can't speak to Mother like that! But Jesus spoke to his mother like that. But he did go on and he performed this miracle, changing the water into wine. This is a very important moment in the Catholic Church, here, because Mary came to Jesus on behalf of the people at the wedding in the position of intercessor to help connect the people to Jesus. This is the role that Mary continues to hold in the Catholic Church. We can see that this role is a very important role. It's a mother's role! People go to the mother if they have a request that they need to make to the father. If it's too difficult to go straight to the father, they go to the mother. So the Catholic Church has a strong tradition of the mother figure that you can go to, to help you with your requests and your difficulties. But the difficulty is the person who is the closest to the messiah, the person who is the closest to the perfected Adam, is not the messiah's mother but it is the messiah's wife. This means that it is Father and Father's bride, True Mother, that are the messiah for us.
There are many things that the son cannot tell his mother, but he can share them with his wife. So there is nobody who is closer to a man than his wife. He can share everything with her. The closest person to Adam is Eve; the closest person to True Father is True Mother. So the basic idea, that there should be a mother figure who can help the children, is good, but Mary was not in the position of the wife of Jesus, she was in the position of mother of Jesus, so she cannot perfectly fulfill this role; she cannot understand Jesus perfectly the way a wife could.
In Buddhism, we can see a similar example: there is one of the bodhisattvas, Guanyin Bodhisattva, originally was a male bodhisattva, but if we look at China, the Guanyin Bodhisattva is portrayed in the form of a woman. Originally this Guanyin was not a woman, but a man. But in China, they felt the need for a female spirit, to ask certain kind of questions to, to make certain kind of requests for. So in China and here in Korea, the Guanyin Bodhisattva has become a woman spirit. We can see that in China and in Korea, in Asian Buddhism, this figure has been changed into a woman, in the position of the perfected Eve, in the position of a perfected mother. This woman, this mother spirit in Buddhism, has done many miraculous things, helping people in danger, helping them escape from in difficult situations; she has helped them escape from prison. There are also pictures of her with a baby, because she has helped women who could not have children to have babies. So if we see these pictures, we see that the people, the faithful, they're looking for a person in the position of perfected Eve. They're looking for a perfect mother, for help and protection, to ask for healing. But now, we can see that we have True Mother! She has come in that position, perfected Eve, and she is the absolute object to True Father, who is the absolute subject. They have absolute give and receive action, and they have become the perfected Parents, with perfected parental love. They have, now, the possibility to give new life to new children.
So many groups throughout history have been preparing for the messiah, waiting for the messiah, waiting for their Savior, but they have all been waiting for just a man. Now we know that the messiah is coming not only as a man, but as a man and a woman, together!
We, too -- the True Children -- many times, if we make a mistake, it's too frightening to go to True Father. We're too scared; we know Father is going to scold us severely. So if we can't go to True Father, we go to Mother first. We'll go to True Mother and we will receive Mother's love. She will embrace us. She will sometimes scold us softly, she will sometimes just hold us, but she will give us a warm, comforting response to our difficulties. After that, she will help us to understand how to approach Father with the problems. She has helped from behind the scenes to solve so many difficult situations within our family. This is the job of the mother. She is able to do this why? Because she understands Father completely. She is united with True Father. Not only in our personal life, but in our life of faith, all of us, we cannot go to True Father and ask him for personal things, for ourselves, because he is busy fighting for God on the frontline, trying to establish the kingdom of Heaven. It's difficult for us to ask for personal things, when we need them. There is no place in True Father's mind to receive our prayers about our personal requests, for our health, for our family, we don't feel comfortable praying to True Father about these things, but we can ask these things to True Mother, we can pray to True Mother about these things, about our health, about our family, about our personal struggles. These are the things we can bring to our True Mother, and then we can receive the understanding and strength to go back to True Father, and we can approach Him about the providence, about our mission.
In our church we need the warm love of the mother. We have times when we cannot go to True Father. These are the times when we can receive True Mother's love. We need this. True Mother prays for us, she does devotions for us. There have been many members, more and more members, who have had miraculous experiences with True Mother. In their dreams, in their visions, they have felt True Mother's protection, and care, and miraculous support in their personal crises, and their health crises. For example, when Dr. Park was facing death when he was kidnapped, the vision of Mother came to him and gave him the strength to hold on. It's so important for us to open our spiritual eyes and see that this motherly love of this perfected Eve, that all religions have been waiting for throughout history, that we can see in examples of other religions, has finally come, is here. The miracles of the Holy Spirit are coming to us now through our True Mother. We can see it. We can believe it.
Let's end with Father's collected words, book 41:
"How will the returning lord come? He will be born on the earth as a True Son of God, who has transcended the fallen world and comes to return joy to God. When he comes, his first task will not be to establish a new nation and transform the world. Of course, that is his indirect objective, but before that, his first direct goal is to become a perfected man and then find a perfected woman. After establishing a perfected wife and uniting as a perfect couple, they must establish a family. Six thousand years of providential history have worked to establish a world centered on God, the Father of mankind, which has remained incomplete due to the fall of man. You must understand that the messiah comes as the returning Christ to find a bride and create a new family centered on God."
Let's stand up and offer a prayer to True Father and special prayer to True Mother. Look at it on the screen and we will read it together.
Prayer to True Father:
"Glory be unto the Holy True Father, the king of kings, the Returning Christ, the perfect inheritor of God's True love! For our trespasses you suffered and died, descending into Hell seven times to indemnify our sins from the individual up to the cosmic level. We bow down before you in utmost gratitude and give to you all of the glory. Aju!
Prayer to True Mother:
"Glory be unto the Holy True Mother, perfected Eve, mover of the Holy Spirit! Blessed is your sacred womb from which we are born again of the Holy Spirit. Pray for us, your children, and permit us to come closer to our Holy True Father, now and when we ascend into the spiritual world. Aju!
Let's put our hands together in prayer, together.
Dear Heavenly Father, victorious True Parents, thank you, thank you so much Heavenly Father please open our spiritual eyes to understand the seven deaths and resurrections and the seven levels of perfection that our True Parents have gone through, dying over and over again, in order to bring this amazing resurrection for us. Our True Father has walked such a difficult path, and our True Mother also, starting from servant of servants has gone a path of suffering and devotion and prayer to be our True Mother. Please open our spiritual eyes that we can understand that our True Father is the perfected Adam, our True Mother as the perfected Eve that the Holy Spirit's miracles can come to us now through our True Mother. On this kind of foundation we want to see True Parents in a new way, with our spiritual eyes. We want to understand what it means that they have come as the messiah, as the second coming, as the savior of mankind. We want to realize fully what this means, their value, their mission. And we want to bow before our True Parents, and with our life of prayer, our life of faith, we want to become one with True Parents. We want to relieve our True Father from all the heavy responsibility that he has taken by himself. We pray that we can be united with our True Parents. And, please Heavenly Father, come to our hearts and make us worthy followers for our True Parents. I pray this sincerely, in the name of our blessed central families, and in the name of our True Parents, the exalted name of our True Parents. Aju
Let's offer a bow of gratitude to our Heavenly Father and True Parents. (Bow)
And to our international president, who has spoken to us today, let us bow.
Let's greet each other and let's manifest the principle: give and take action, four position foundation; may you inherit the true love of God. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Have a blessed day and a victorious day.