True Mother delivered this speech to an audience of twenty thousand who had purchased tickets to the “Peace Starts with Me” Hyojeong Cultural Festival, which took place in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on July 15 (5.22 by the heavenly calendar).
Esteemed Ladies and Gentlemen, Ambassadors for Peace, Academic and Political Leaders, ACLC Ministers, Family Federation Blessed Families and Our Future Leaders in the Youth Federation:
Today, I will talk to you about the responsibility of this blessed country, America, God’s providence and America’s mission from the viewpoint of the history of human civilization. When we look at the world today, we see that war, religious conflict, ideological discord and natural disasters are plaguing it. When we know of seven million children dying from such unspeakable tragedies, can we find hope for our future?
The religious world is the same. No matter what the reason was or where trouble began, our destination must be the same. We need to know God. The Creator, God, who is the owner of the original universe, created the world and created a man and a woman to become the first human ancestors. God gave them a special growth period, during which they were to learn how to take responsibility. Heaven’s hope was for Adam and Eve to grow beautifully with absolute love and absolute obedience and to receive God’s blessing to become the true parents of humankind.
Unfortunately, during their growth period, Adam and Eve acquired greed. That is what brought about the state of the human race today. Because the almighty, all-powerful God gave the principle of creation to human beings, human beings themselves had to make their own way to victory. Yet, for those unaware of God, inheriting Heaven’s will has not been easy.
God chose the Israelites and tried to achieve his will through them. Throughout the long period of four thousand years, God strove to indemnify the original sin from the individual level to the societal level. Meanwhile, he promised that he would send the Savior, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and he did. However, what happened?
Jesus was born as God’s only son. God created a man and a woman. Since Jesus is a man, he needed to meet a woman. Mary, Zachariah’s family, Judaic figures and the Israelites generally should have prepared for this, but they did not fulfill their responsibilities. Jesus could not fulfill God’s will alone. He had no choice but to die on the cross and under those circumstances he said he would come again. He said he would return and hold the marriage supper of the Lamb. The marriage supper of the Lamb! The history of the Christian Church began with resurrection by the Holy Spirit, and its believers await the returning Lord.
However, in the beginning, the Christian Church suffered from extreme persecution and misunderstanding. Three hundred years later, Christianity received official recognition in Rome, and then in all of Italy, and then across the European continent, all the way to Britain, an island nation. Centered on Britain, the surrounding nations began the era of the Atlantic Civilization and Christianity spread throughout the world. Yet Christians did not understand Jesus’ essence. They did not fully understand God’s providence and in the end, they retreated. Consequently, today’s modern civilization pursues the development of a material civilization rather than that of a moral civilization.
The returning Lord
Meanwhile, in the seventeenth century, King James, England’s king, commissioned an English version of the Bible. This brought about a new religious movement, the representative nation of which is America. Heaven established America as a blessed nation to prepare the foundation for the Lord, who said he would come again. Within the short span of two hundred years, America became one of the world’s most powerful nations. This was possible because it had Heaven’s blessing. Isn’t that so?
However, those in the Christian cultural sphere had a responsibility to prepare for the returning Lord but they were not striving to fulfill that. Jesus said he would come again. He could not form the True Parents of humankind by only coming in the spirit. He needed to come in a physical body. In that case, since he said he would come and hold the marriage supper of the Lamb, the birth of God’s only daughter needed to occur within the Christian cultural sphere.
Heaven began to prepare for the birth of God’s only daughter. Once a people, nation or central figure fails to fulfill a personal responsibility, God does not use them again. This is because they came to owe indemnity for not fulfilling that personal responsibility. Through history, we know what kind of indemnity others had already paid. Therefore, Heaven chose the Han people in Asia and in 1943, centered on the foundation of Christianity, God’s only daughter was born.
In 1945, Korea gained liberation [from Japanese occupation] but with it, Korea was soon split into North Korea and South Korea, communistic and democratic, respectively. The North’s communists, under a single system, were ready to invade the South. At the time, the South’s democrats hadn’t established their own system yet. However, just as God established period of growth according to the principle of creation, God’s only daughter, who had already been born, also needed a growth period. Heaven could not leave her in a dangerous area and thus guided her to South Korea. After she had made it, the Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. At the time, South Korea had no power to face North Korea; yet, like a miracle, the UN rallied sixteen nations to Korea’s aid and good people shed blood. Today’s South Korea is the fruit of its democracy.
Throughout all this, Heaven could wait no longer to solve global problems and required True Parents’ manifestation. Hence, the realization of True Parents occurred in 1960. However, the Christian realm did not create an environment for them. True Parents’ every move had to begin from the bottom-up. Thus, they completed the blessing of 430 couples who could represent a people.
To America’s rescue
In the meantime, America, blessed by Heaven, became sick and in 1972, True Parents came to the United States. Healing and restoring all the problems in America became a priority. Many righteous people and many young people followed Rev. Moon, but reckless politicians who did not understand, tried to chase Rev. Moon out of America. As a result, True Father went to prison in Danbury. If it were not for True Parents’ mission, no need existed for them to come to America.
However, because they were the True Parents, because their mission was to save America and guide the world to God, True Father endured incarceration in Danbury, and for forty years, he shed blood, sweat and tears for America.
America was supposed to take responsibility as a nation blessed in relation to Heaven’s providence, but it was suffering from so much individualism, family breakdown and problems among youth that one could not bear to look an inch into America’s future. It was also facing the threat of communism. My husband believed that the way to save America was the way to save the world; therefore, he told a famous doctor of political science to declare the failure of communism. That was in 1985. What happened? Communism fell five years later. That was not all. True Parents brought three thousand young people from a communist environment, the Soviet Union, to the United States and taught them. As a result, these people were able to protect their nation from communism’s threats.
The world is unaware of this. Even without the cooperation of any nation, let alone that of America, True Parents overcame unspeakable and indescribable difficulties. It took more than fifty years to reach where we are today. During that time, the Family Federation has established blessed families in more than a hundred and twenty nations.
Fallen human beings cannot return to God. They need to receive engrafting by the True Parents, who among all human beings, achieved victory. That is the blessing, which the Family Federation offers. When this nation and the world is overflowing with blessed families, God’s dream, humankind’s hope, True Parents’ hope, and the one human family’s hope can become reality.
The global providence
That day is not far away. True Parents blessed Korea and Japan as the central nations of the providence and America as the eldest-son nation. These three nations need to unite and on the foundation of a revolution in the culture of heart, and then based on a heart of filial piety, we need to begin the era of the Pacific Rim civilization from Asia. When the footsteps of blessed families and young people of the Youth Federation across the five oceans and six continents become sparks and lights in front of the world, 7.4 billion people will flock as one toward those lights. We need to create such an environment.
A world of genuine freedom, equality, peace, unity and happiness is not far off. When all of you gathered here today become one with True Parents and practice living for the sake of others with true love toward those around you—your tribe, your church and your nation—we can build a united world with our own hands.
Ladies and gentlemen, here today, I hope that all of you unite with me and become sparks that light up this dark world and guide people to God’s bosom. God Bless America! May this country, blessed by God, truly uphold this statement: May you never forget that essence and become lights in the world with redoubled courage! .
