Thank you for participating in this very important International Leadership Conference in honor of Foundation Day, which we will celebrate on February 12. As you know, foundations are extremely important. Architects and engineers know this very well, as do scientists, philosophers and any systematic thinker. Likewise, the foundation of relationships is extremely important. If we build on weak or insecure foundations, serious problems inevitably follow. This principle applies to everything we do.
My beloved husband, Dr. Sun Myung Moon, devoted his entire life of ninety-two years to establishing a secure foundation for a world of lasting peace. He worked tirelessly for this goal and endured and overcame all manner of resistance and persecution. Yet he was not deterred. Each and every day, I give thanks to God, our Heavenly Parent, that my husband fulfilled his mission and that we can build on the foundation he established.
He understood that the ultimate foundation for a world of peace is God, our Heavenly Parent. Alignment with our Heavenly Parent's will is the foundation of peace. No matter what obstacles stand in our way, those who secure their foundation in God, our Heavenly Parent, will develop the capacity to open the way to a world of peace.
Although my husband, True Father, passed away to the heavenly realm in 2012, not a day goes by when I do not feel his warm presence and loving guidance. Even though he is in the spiritual world and I am here on earth, the position of the True Parents is unshakable.
For more than fifty years, I stood by his side as he lived every moment of his life with an intense awareness of not only human suffering, but of God's own suffering course. He wanted nothing more than to liberate the suffering heart of our Heavenly Parent and the suffering hearts of all human beings. That was his mission. This is the mission of the True Parents.
More than anyone, our Heavenly Parent longs for joy, harmony and lasting peace for all his children, the whole human family. However, those hopes were dashed due to the Fall, which resulted in the tragic history of human selfishness and conflict that has continued until today.
As I look at our world today, I, too, can feel the pain that God must feel as he witnesses the ignorance, selfishness and sinfulness of human beings. It is especially painful for our Heavenly Parent to witness the degradation of marriage and family life, because the family was created to be the sacred and holy cornerstone of God's original ideal. God, our Heavenly Parent, created the world with a clear ideal in mind. At the very center of this ideal was the parent–child relationship, rooted in filial piety. If we consider the biblical story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, we can understand that the root cause of the Fall was the failure of Adam and Eve, as well as the Archangel, to maintain absolute faith, love and obedience toward their Heavenly Parent, God. Their faithlessness undermined God's ideal based on true love in the first marriage and the first family. This reality affected Adam and Eve's relationship to each other as man and woman and their relationship to their children, giving rise to the long-standing historical pattern of Cain and Abel division that has plagued humanity up until the present time. As you recall, the first murder occurred within the first family, as the older brother, Cain, killed the younger brother, Abel, who had stood on God's side. For this reason, my husband consistently taught of the absolute centrality of both filial piety and true love in our life of faith. Only in this way can we reverse the effects of the Fall.
The one, unifying purpose and goal of our worldwide movement is to establish a nation of peace. We call this nation Cheon Il Guk. This Korean word can be translated as a nation where two become one. In other words, Cheon Il Guk is a nation where resentments and divisions of every kind are healed and overcome, resulting in harmony, cooperation and peace. The Foundation Day that we celebrate at this time is none other than the anniversary of the founding day of the nation of Cheon Il Guk, God's heavenly nation. Following Foundation Day 2013, I developed the 2020 Vision for expanding that ideal of Cheon Il Guk throughout the world. The sponsoring and partner organizations for this International Leadership Conference are the Universal Peace Federation, the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the Women's Federation for World Peace, the Segye Times and the Washington Times Foundation. Each of these organizations dedicates itself to playing a significant role in God's providence.
My beloved husband, True Father, understood peace as a profoundly spiritual concept. Whenever he spoke, he shared an inspiring vision of the human family rising together in love, and overcoming the barriers of nationality, race and religion. He taught that peace describes a state of spiritual and physical harmony -- an ideal state of being for the individual, the family, the society, the nation and the world. Whenever he used the word "peace," he always thought primarily of God's heart and God's providence.
I encourage you to study my husband's teachings. If you study carefully, you will come to understand the way in which God works in history. His teachings provide a road map to peace, one that helps us understand the correct path that we should follow.
True peace begins with the attitude and practice of filial piety toward our Heavenly Parent. This basic virtue must then be combined with sexual purity before marriage and fidelity in marriage. Men and women are intended to live as equal and eternal love partners. The family is created by God as the school of love and peace.
This is why my husband and I, as the True Parents, initiated and performed holy weddings, known as Blessing Ceremonies, all over the world. The blessing is an affirmation of God's original ideal of true love and true family.
Throughout history, our Heavenly Parent has guided human beings through religion. At this time in history, lasting peace also requires harmony and cooperation among religions. Believers of all faith traditions should work together in love and respect, for the sake of fulfilling our Heavenly Parent's will. As we stand in front of God, we are not evaluated by our title or the name of our religion, but by the quality of our hearts and by the quality of our efforts to serve God's providence.
I know that each of you has great responsibilities and great influence in your countries. I hope that you will take seriously what you learn over the course of the next several days and that you take this message back to your countries and to your people.
Let me then leave you with four recommendations that I hope you will affirm and put into practice:
Please study the teachings of Father Moon, and come to understand the heart of our Heavenly Parent, the origin of life, of love and of all truth.
Do your best to build a strong, stable and loving marriage as husband and wife and on that foundation dedicate yourselves fully to the care and education of your children.
Apply the principle of living for the sake of others in all your endeavors, whether you are a government official, a religious leader, an educator, a media professional or an artist.
Always be aware that your life on earth is temporary. After we complete our physical lives, we will ascend to the spiritual world. In that place, we are not measured by our wealth or power. We are measured simply by our capacity for true love and the extent to which we lived our lives on earth in service to God and humanity.
Please be assured that our representatives around the world stand ready to support and work with you in whatever way they can to advance the ideal of peace and human development in your nation. Let us work together to build ideal families and nations and let us join together as people, as nations, as religions and as families to create Cheon Il Guk, one family under God. Thank you and God bless you, your families and your nations.
