I attended the very special ceremony in Korea when True Father established the eighth holy day--July 7. He called it the Seven-Eight Day. The Seven-Eight Day consists of eight sevens. Father proclaimed it this year, 1997 in the seventh month, on the seventh day, the seventh hour, the seventh minute, the seventh second and it is True Father's seventy-seventh birth year. And so we gathered for the Celebration of Seven-Eight Day.
At that time, Father proclaimed the "Realm of the Cosmic Sabbath for Parents of Heaven and Earth." Or in Korea we say, Chunji Pumo Chunju Ahnsik-gwon Sunpo. This means, Parents of Heaven and Earth. Who are Parents of Heaven and Earth? God is Parent of Heaven and True Parents are Parents of Earth. The Father is the Parent of Heaven and the Mother is the Parent of Earth. Heavenly Parents are vertical and Earth Parents are horizontal. Heaven's Parents are internal Parents and Earth's Parents are external Parents. Heavenly Parents are the invisible God and the Parents of Earth are the visible God, True Parents. This is what is meant by "Parents of Heaven and Earth."
We also need to know the meaning of Cosmic Sabbath. "Sabbaoth," the Hebrew word from the Old Testament era means 'rest'. God created the Earth in six days and on the seventh day He did sabbaoth, he rested, ahnsik.
The meaning of ahn would be the following: In a house there is a mother; the mother always prepares a very comfortable, very peaceful and serene atmosphere. Sik means: a mind that is free and peaceful; a body that is free. In other words, in our home we live a free, peaceful and comfortable life because that atmosphere has been created by our loving and peaceful mother.
We already celebrate seven official holy days in our church, but Father said this eighth one is the most important day of all. There is a key point here that I would like to convey: Within this new holy day, this Sabbath, there are eight elements: 1) with unity of mind and body one becomes an individual House of Sabbath; 2) husband and wife united become a House of Sabbath; 3) a family united becomes House of Sabbath; 4) a tribe united becomes House of Sabbath; 5) a nation united becomes House of Sabbath; 6) a world united becomes House of Sabbath; 7) the cosmos or Heaven and Earth united becomes House of Sabbath; and 8) God united becomes House of Sabbath. So here are our eight Houses.
Everything begins with mind/body unity. That is the most important, fundamental issue, because Sabbath must begin on the individual level. Principally and theologically we need to develop a good definition and explanation of mind/body unity. God wants to dwell within the individual House of Sabbath. He needs to dwell inside our mind and body. Just as our mind dwells within our body, so God wants to dwell there. He wants to rest within our mind. If one asks "who or what is God?" ...God is love. (1 John 4:8) As a person begins a spiritual walk they realize God is love. This is the greatest of all realizations. We find 'love' printed in the Bible more than any other word.
God sent so many prophets to Earth to speak for Him. That tells us how much God loves us. God is love. For our sake He sent many special people to tell us about Him. That is the greatest expression of His love. God always forgives us, supports and protects us. He loves us with a true parental heart, with a true teacher's heart and a true owner's heart. John is known as the disciple of love. This is because he received such amazing love from Jesus. True Father himself quotes most often from John's words: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son... (John 3:16)
Jesus Christ 2000 years ago brought the message of good news of the Kingdom of God. "Repent," he said, "the Kingdom of God will come soon." What is the Kingdom of God? Christian theologians cannot give a clear explanation of these words because Jesus gave symbolisms for the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven. Clearly, the contents defining the atmosphere of the Kingdom of God is JOY and HAPPINESS--a very joyful world. Everybody can agree on this. And if we ask, "where is the Kingdom of God?" just as the Bible says "it is within you." (Luke 17:21)
House of Sabbath means that God dwells there. And if God dwells there, it means that it is the Kingdom of God. Isn't that logical? In the 2,000 years of Christianity, believers have not been able to establish the Kingdom because it begins within themselves and even God's people are always looking outside themselves when seeking the Kingdom. "If we change this society, the Kingdom of God will come on Earth," they say. Or "if we can bring about a [political] revolution on Earth, that will bring the ideal." Marx, Lenin and Stalin thought this way. They hoped to bring to the society, nation and world a systemic human society.
We know that with mind and body unity we become Temples of God; Almighty God, the God of True Love can dwell within my heart; He will guide me, inspire me. So our words, our thinking, our expressions, our lifestyle will be divine, God-like. We enter perfection. Jesus said, You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:48)
The Kingdom of God on Earth has not come because our minds and bodies have not been ready for God to dwell here. Instead, God has continued to guide us, inspire us and supervise and rule our lives through prophets and religions. We did not permit God to dwell within us individually or to dwell collectively in our society and world.
In the Beatitudes of Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.. (Matt: 5:8) If your heart is pure, you will see God. Also he said, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. (Matt. 5:9)
Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matt. 5:10) If you are persecuted that means you are dedicated and you are putting forth effort, investing for a righteous world; then you will gain the Kingdom of God.
When we make mind and body unity, we become pure in heart, develop a peaceful and righteous personality and desire to sacrifice for God and the Messiah. But we will not see the Kingdom of God if we practice evil ways which are contrary to the Kingdom. We can learn about evil practices through the following verses in the Bible:
That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. (Mark 7:20-23)
But I say to you, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in oppostion to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery. enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
(Gal. 5:16-21)
How can the Kingdom of God come into us if we are living in any of these evil ways? It cannot happen. This kind of divided flesh and mind cannot find unity. It is centered on satanic love. We must overcome this fallen, satanic nature and reverse the process by the Blessing. Through the Blessing, God and True Parents give undying, eternal new life; through the Holy Wine Ceremony we can receive the seed of new life.
Jesus said, ...Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. (John 3:3) We must be born again. After we are reborn, we need to grow. Just as children who are born physically must grow over a period of time, so we must grow after our birth (or rebirth). So again, when we get the Blessing, we are given the 'potential' to change ourselves into divine personalities, with changed hearts and minds and bodies. Then we can say we are the image of God, children of God, citizens of the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven.
We must invest our effort to develop our human personality and unite our mind and body in order to become children of God. Or as Jesus said in the book of Mark: The foremost [commandment] is, HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH. the second is this: YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29-31) True Father quotes these verses so often.
With God dwelling in our heart, our heart and soul become completely mobilized to unite with God, have give and take with God and take care of God, This is the most important commandment. And physically, horizontally we must love our spouse, our family, neighbors, nation and world. This is developing a goodness of heart, a divine heart. We also need good, fresh and divine physical bodies.
St. Paul said in Galatians, For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:22-24)
St. Paul said clearly, if you have the nine fruits of the Spirit mentioned above, your life will become a divine life, a God-like life. We can experience this kind of life on Earth, in our physical bodies.
I strongly urge everyone to work at uniting their mind and body. This is True Father's constant teaching to us. He knows we have not achieved this completely. He knows everything begins at that point.
This is the fundamental cornerstone for world peace; this is the cornerstone for the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven; and this is the cornerstone for the House of Sabbath for God and True Parents. It is important for us to realize this.
Some members say they do not want to give the Blessing to others because their personal and family situation is not happy so how are they to go out and inspire others? I developed an answer to this: Please go out regardless and knock on doors. Observe what is behind the doors--broken families, single-parent households, struggling, unhappy people. This is among believers as well as nonbelievers. Then look at your own family. It is still intact. It still maintains itself with no divorce. This is the power of the Blessing. In comparison to other families, your family looks good and you have to be grateful. It is not yet perfect, but God and True Parents have given the Seed of Life to us, the potential for perfection for the ideal blessed family. We have to receive this seed and grow it to perfection by working the soil, investing our 95% responsibility; love and serve our spouse and our family. This way we gain victory.
There are some couples who have not invested in their own marriage. They have not served their marriage with gratitude and repentence. They have not paid the necessary indemnity nor sacrificed with True Love (living for the sake of others). If I say of my own marriage, "it is not happy because of Mrs. Pak," that is wrong. If my marriage is unhappy, it is because of me. That is how we must think. My practice of love, my dedication, my attitude, my personal standards, my character, my lifestyle is not ideal for my wife. So I could say then that my family is not happy yet "because of me." Too often couples point the finger of accusation at their spouse. This has been the basic cause of trouble in families. If you are not a happy blessed person, then the first step is to repent within yourself, not pass the blame to someone else.
President John Kennedy spoke his famous words to his fellow Americans: "ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country." Well, this must also be our attitude toward our family, our mission, our nation, our world and toward God.
Knowing all this, can we still say we cannot give the Blessing to others because our own life is not happy? No. Do we all start out in married life without problems? Impossible. In my own marriage we had to work out many things, change ourselves, our attitudes to make it a good marriage. It takes work! Our children learn from this. They also benefit from every problem that is worked out. They see the parents' unity in working things out and they appreciate and are proud when they can be in a peaceful, loving atmosphere.
When the wife and husband are always struggling and fighting, the house is a fearful place; broken or divorced families make our second generation suffer so much. We all know, including psychologists and scholars, that crime, drugs, alcohol, all the troubles of youth, come from the family in crisis. The whole world crisis stems from one big factor--the troubled family. And the family crisis comes from our own mind and body disunity.
We need to make the family House of Sabbath by creating husband/wife unity. We need to repent individually, saying "Heavenly Father, I am not grown up yet; I am so sorry; without my husband, without my wife, I am only half of a small cosmos, I am handicapped. Because of my wife, my husband, I can become perfect, a perfected cosmos. Without husband, without wife, we cannot have eternal life in the Kingdom of God. Joy and happiness are impossible.
Christian churches always encourage individual salvation, not husband and wife, not family. That is an Archangel religion. Unification Church is a family church. We next need a House of Sabbath for tribes. We are urged to reach for a goal of 185 couples and we can understand the value of this number. To bless, educate and develop these tribes requires a great deal of love on the part of our families.
Next we need restoration of the nation. For that, True Father has sent out National Messiahs to 185 nations of the world. They must reach every facet of society in their nations and educate their nations.
In Blessing successes, Korea was the #1 nation (with well over a million); #2 was the Philippines (952,000); #3 was Nigeria (748,000); #4 was Ghana (658,000). These nations received awards. Now Sudan has stepped up as #1.
Father knew Jesus was happy with all this success so Father was happy.
To reach these goals, in these nations, was not an easy thing. But with the help of Heaven they did it.
America is the Bride country to receive the Bridegroom so America should be #1 in the 36 milion couple Blessing. We must work to attain this so that Jesus' heart can be healed. America has been prepared to receive the Lord of the Second Advent. Should America be #1 in Blessing numbers because it is a super country? No. Or because it is a powerful and rich country? No. Because of Jesus Christ. That's why it should be in the lead.
Just as national messiahs in all nations are responsible to bring many Blessing couples, so American state and district leaders should think of themselves as equivalent to national messiahs during this time and work very hard to bring up their Blessing quotas. There are districts and states that have far more numbers in areas than some of the nations out there with national messiahs so you should feel this same responsibility. Especially in this Christian nation of America. For the sake of God, Jesus and True Parents we must fulfill our heavenly responsibility.
People are so inspired as we share with them this worldwide movement for True Families and Blessing '97. As tribal leaders we can proudly take the good news to our communities as the Willet family did in Kentucky, reaching out to their whole community, kindling the fire of enthusiasm.
The Willets are a good example of how we make a House of Sabbath for Tribal Messiahs.
America has made some success. We have six Indian nations (tribes) belonging to the Blessing now. I was asked to give a report on North American Blessings while I was in Korea. This was significant. There were important leaders from all around the world present there. This is really revival time for America. After the report was given, many leaders told me how inspired they were by the report and how secure it made them feel to hear the report.
The world looks to America. It expects great things from America. From you and I. Are we going to fulfill our heavy--and glorious--responsibility. Do we dare to be lazy or disunited! If we do not bring victory, then all the world and the spiritual world as well will bring blame and shame upon us! Especially the East Coast, New York and Washington, DC areas in particular. These are vital areas. We have received so much benefit here. We eat good and do not have to sacrifice so much in comparison to other countries.
For example, in my new nation of Switzerland, my son In Ho and his wife Eun Jin returned to New York after a visit there this summer and told the story of how the Japanese National Messiah Mr. Wada, went out on the streets witnessing to the Blessing, not knowing the language at all and sacrificing so much, not even eating much food. My son was so impressed. so touched by seeing what Mr. Wada was doing that he turned over to Mr. Wada the couples he and Eun Jin had blessed while there. Before starting the second generation workshop which In Ho went there to lead, their couple had witnessed publicly to some very substantial people.
So here in New York, in America, we must be very grateful for what we have compared to other countries. We must change our attitudes and begin to sacrifice more and work harder. The more we Bless here, the more the spiritual world benefits. We must also consider Registration. More and more is being revealed. There will probably be a horizontal registration as well as a vertical registration. So it is wise to continue Blessings even after you have reached your quotas.
Dr. Hendricks has produced a letter for the nation giving regional successes so we must keep a competitive spirit. A few members are near or over 1,000.
This is the season of harvest! Also, Dr. Hendricks' office will be forthcoming with material to educate our Blessing couples.
We have a good standard in giving the Blessing in America. We explain the Blessing, we give holy wine and water, we pray, we have good registration forms, we give beautiful certificates, we take pictures. We must continue this way. We should go to the best and worst places, we should go day and night. This is how Satan works so we should too. 360,000 is too small a number for big America. We should determine to go much higher.
We must also update our database quickly. This is our Book of Life. The nation needs its Book of Life. This is our great year in America, our great honor to have this Blessing in Washington, DC. We must take this seriously.
The spiritual world is working actively with us. This is our time for success.
This November 29 is our opportunity of a lifetime! We must think victory, not defeat. We must go down in history as having brought victory at this unusual event, at this special time in history. So we witness, we record, we educate and we bring one bus (20 couples) each and we will bring easy victory.
In John's Revelation 22:2 John said the Tree of Life has a lot of fruit, for a season, but Jesus most hated and cursed the fig tree, because it was devoid of fruit. We do not want to be barren trees before True Parents.
True Father arrived in America twenty-five years ago. I was there. There were few to welcome him. But he promised God at that time that he would practice True Love and sacrifice more than any American founding father or pioneer had done for this country. How much support and love have all of us received from True Father! Priceless Blessing, good missionary positions, protection, always giving us vision and hope. But what have we given True Parents?
Before declaring the "Realm of the Cosmic Sabbath for Parents of Heaven and Earth" Father delivered a most deep and emotional prayer. I have never seen Father so tearful as he poured out his gratitude to God, as he comforted God in remembering God's own loneliness, and True Father's lonely and dangerous path in restoration. Under God's protection, he practiced True Love and is now on the Top of the World. He is the Bright Sunlight and the Bright Moonlight. This is our True Parents. He declared to God: "Now You can rest, now You can relax. This world will now become Your nation, Your world, Your cosmos."
In Switzerland, there is a Catholic theologian and scholar of ethics, Hans Kung, who was excommunicated because his teachings were not compatible with the teachings of the Church. He is known worldwide for his ethical thoughts. Right now he is writing his 'world ethics' which he worked on in conjunction with the UN. Kung said "Today's world is so individualistic, losing the value system, losing tradition, losing integrity, losing all good things. The world is becoming more and more selfish. Struggle is coming." What does Kung give as a solution? "Only one thing: practice love." That is the answer. As Jesus and True Parents taught, "live for others; practice True Love." It is the solution for world peace. We must make our individual self the House of God, our husbands and wives, our families, our nation, world and cosmos. It is not yet time for completion, but we must get started. It will be fulfilled soon. This is the meaning of the Seven-Eight Holy Day.