Prayer: We thank You for Your protection and for surrounding us with love

Sun Myung Moon
January 1, 1982
God's Day, Midnight

Photo date and location unknown

Photo date and location unknown

Loving Father,

This is the very starting moment of the new year 1982. We have left 1981 in Your care, and now, from this moment forward, we enter the new year. We thank You for giving us Your protection and direction and surrounding us with Your love throughout the providential course.

Even though countless forefathers have made sacrifices throughout the long and tiresome course of restoration, still it is the destiny of us today and of our descendants to go through the way of indemnity. We thank You when we think of how hard You had to work because of the fall of Adam, in order to enable us to transcend the time differences of past, present and future.

Also we thank You when we reflect on how hard You have worked to achieve the perfection of Adam on the individual, family, society and national levels, by sending the second Adam. Because of Adam's fall, mankind had no true first ancestor. To restore this through indemnity, Jesus came to Israel in the position of True Parent; therefore, Israel and Judaism should have become one in order to receive him. To accomplish his mission and fulfill Your will, the messiah had to go through three years of public ministry. But since Jesus died on the cross, for 2,000 years You have been raising up Christianity as the new religion. These 2,000 years of Christian history have been filled with blood and sacrifice. Thus, by going through the way of death, the Christian church wove the history of indemnity.

Although in order to receive the coming messiah, the Christian culture was destined to unite, centering on America, Christians were so hostile to their destiny after World War II that the path of indemnity necessary to restore everything on the worldwide level was amazingly difficult. When we reflect on this difficult task, we come to realize how hard You have been working.

After World War II, Korea, America and England should have joined together to carry out world restoration, uniting Christianity and the Unification Church. This destined course was hindered, however, by the Christian Church's repeated prolongations. When we think of this disastrous way of indemnity, again we come to realize how hard You have been working.

Here I stand as Your son to restore Your goals through indemnity. Your expectations for the 1930s and 1940s have had to be postponed until the 1970s and even 1980s. Now we are at the end of 1981, having victoriously finished the first three seven-year courses. We thank You for allowing us to begin the second three seven-year courses. Loving Father, at the dawn of 1982, please allow us to gather here in the spirit of oneness.

In his place, we, the five races of mankind, become one representing all the races from around the world. This is also the place where the Unification Church built the foundation of victory centering on our True Father and True Mother. Now on this worldwide base, we have been able to begin our dispensation of home church activity, to open the way through which our children can inherit the victorious foundation on the family, society and national levels. At this moment, we are moving one step forward into the transitional stage of history, having overcome Satan's persecution; we are marching forward to another stage of worldwide welcome.

Father, I am asking Your permission for 1982 to be the year in which the Unification Church makes home church its center, forming a new historical era which will be the source for the establishment of a new tradition.

Through home church we will be able to victoriously resolve the deep resentment of our ancestors on every level. I ask You to allow us now and our descendants in the future to realize the seriousness of this way of victory.

Now we have gone past the position of servant of servant, past the position of adopted children, and past resentment, becoming able to bring joy to heaven. Thank You for placing us where we can build an era by living for seven years centering on home church activity.

I ask Your blessing on the second three seven-year courses. In 1982, when the new home church movement is being ushered in, I ask for Your permission to establish a new tradition. Now the world which is centered on Your love will again have to take up a fighting course of love in order to overcome everything and receive heaven's blessing. Heaven, give us your blessing. The time of sadness, fighting and struggling is past; thank You for making this era's atmosphere one of vision and longing. Father, please give us Your blessing.

Now in front of heaven this Unification Church can lift its face and receive praise from everyone in this four dimensional era which we are passing through as if in the twinkling of an eye. Father, I beseech You to give us Your blessing.

Forgetting the long hard course of restoration through indemnity, now I give my blood, sweat and my most sincere heart on the stage of home church. Wherever my feet have not touched, may I touch those places and enter all doors with the most sincere heart, in order to make You the master of the environment. After they become one with me, I will bring all things of the universe and all of Cain's children before You. Also today we are entering the new year, the year when Mother becomes 40 years old. Though young in years, she has been like a teacher and a parent; she serves her husband, who is sometimes like her parent or elder brother. Today You cannot help but love her, for she has undertaken and endured so well the burning way of the Unification Church.

With her big heart, she has been in a position to love many children in addition to her own. Now at the beginning of this second three seven-year courses, because of the historical mission of uniting the blessed families with True Parents' family, Ye Jin's family and Hyo Jin's family, I come before You, Father, with sincerest gratitude that the surprising event of this engagement and marriage can take place according to Your will. Father, the families of this son and daughter are not fully aware of their historical mission of becoming unified families. Surrounded by the blessed families, these two couples which the angelic world cannot defeat are working wholeheartedly to resolve historical resentment; they are forming a barrier around everyone, coming before heaven with seriousness and showing You filial piety. Thus, they can stand in the position to teach others.

Please bless the children True Parents have been longing for -- children who are in a fighting and lonely position; sharing the same mind with them, we are moved to tears. If there are heavily burdened people op the course of indemnity, I repeatedly ask Your blessing on them.

Now, facing a new land in which we can dwell in love, we must go out, according to Your order, asking Your blessing for the world of home church. Please bless our home church areas with Your glory and divine protection. I pray for Your glory and divine protection throughout the 1980s, from beginning to end; and I thank You for all the things You have taken care of throughout the past year, 1981.

All these things I submit to You and ask of You.

Amen.