by Christian Lepelletier-Sao Paulo, Brazil
The Chusok festival, or Moon festival, is widely celebrated throughout the Oriental culture. In Korea the families gather at their ancestor's graves on the 15th of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the most beautiful full moon of the year. Yesterday Father instructed to prepare a small altar with offerings, a cake and to make a special ceremony at 8 am this morning.
Until 3:30 am in the night Father was talking to the Korean National Messiah in the 6th floor room. This morning they thought the program would start at 8 am, so every one was still in bed at 6 am. When True Parents came down to the 5th floor temple for the Hon dok hae at 6 am, no one was there. I saw Mrs. Won Ju running through the corridor, knocking on doors, to quickly wake up all Korean NM. They were rushing to dress and to enter the hall one by one and making a full bow in front of True Parents who were waiting patiently for the whole group to assemble, before they began the reading. At 6:15 am Mrs. Won Ju started to read from the same book as yesterday, until 8 am.
Everybody rose, and True Parents initiated the ceremony, with a special prayer, which sounded deep and tearful. Afterwards Rev. Kwak commented that the title of the ceremony was the Proclamation of Total Liberation and Unification Between the Physical and the Spiritual World.
Through the prayer Father assigned a mission to the 5 major saints previously blessed last June at the Madison Square Garden Blessing ceremony, they are assigned to work on earth with their followers as follows: Jesus' couple will be in USA, Joseph and Mary's couple in Latin America, Buddha's couple in Korea, Confucius' couple in China, Mohammed’s couple in the Muslim world. Rev Kwak said during the ceremony they were all present with many disciples and followers. True Parents cut the cake and we had three cheers of mansei. Then Father asked to line up by continent, and we could take a continental group photo with True Parents.
After breakfast, the Korean national messiahs gathered in the 5th floor hall. They were preparing for a yute tournament, but Father appear again in casual clothes, grabbed himself a chair from the corridor and sat in front of the group. He spoke quite a few hours until afternoon. Lunch and the yute tournament were delayed for a few hours.
People then were divided into 16 teams for the yute tournament which lasted until the evening. They competition continued until the final team won a cash prize.