213. The Role of Women Has Become More Important

Book 2: A Model for the Family Ideal and World Peace
Part 1: The True Love Movement and the Role of Women
Chapter 15: The Role of Women Has Become More Important

This speech was given at the World Women's Peace Network General Assembly held on March 25, 2012 at the Beache Palace Resort Hotel in Muchangpo, Korea to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Women's Federation for World Peace.

Beloved world leaders of the Women's Federation for World Peace! I would like to extend my warmest welcome to the leaders and members who have come from various parts of the world to attend the 20th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Women's Federation for World Peace held in this beautiful Muchangpo, situated on the west coast of Korea. I would also like to return my deepest gratitude and glory to God and Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who is the co-founder of WFWP together with me.

The activities of the Women's Federation for World Peace

The Women's Federation for World Peace was founded in April of 1992 as a central organization of the women's peace movement at the Seoul Olympic Stadium in Jamsil, along with a declaration of the advent of the global era of women, with women representatives from more than 70 nations and 150,000 Korean women leaders attending. It is truly inspiring that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of WFWP.

During the past twenty years WFWP has achieved amazing growth and development as it carried out various services and educational programs to advocate the firm establishment of families of true love and the elevation of women's status, based on true maternal love, in all parts of the global village. From its early days, I prepared the ground for the global organization of WFWP and the foundation for its activities by going on speaking tours across continents and nations. Moreover, I mobilized all the WFWP members around the world, including the 1,600 Japanese members who were sent out to 160 nations as volunteer workers.

In addition, based on the special address I gave at the UN Headquarters, New York, in September of 1993, as well as three years' worth of efforts made to develop the services and programs I have mentioned, WFWP was approved by the United Nations Economic and Social Council as an NGO in General Consultative Status, which is the highest status given to an NGO. In particular, WFWP members have devotedly carried out various activities to realize the Millennium Development Goals instituted by the UN at the beginning of the new millennium, and it gives me great pleasure to tell you that, thanks to their hard work and their achievements, our status has been reapproved continuously at the re-evaluations held every four years.

The Middle East Women Leaders' Peace Council has been hosted every year from 1997 under my guidance, and has now been expanded and developed into a more concretized and localized campaign, thanks to the interest and participation of women leaders from 20 nations in the Middle East. I believe this is a truly remarkable achievement. In addition, we have hosted Global Women Leaders' Workshops in different continents each year, starting from 2000, and these have taken root as a beautiful meeting place for the participants to share their on-the-scene experiences in all corners of the global village, their wisdom, and their vision for the future, and to cooperate with one another. Taking it a step further, WFWP members in all continents and countries, including Korea, the International Headquarters of WFWP, as well as Japan, the United States, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Canada, Central and South America, Africa, and Northeast Asia, are developing and carrying out various projects adapted to their local needs. As I witness the fact that the power of women is changing society and achieving amazing accomplishments in the construction of a peaceful world, I cannot but feel proud of and grateful to all of them.

As can be seen, from the founding of WFWP to reaching the highest standing as an NGO in Consultative Status under the UN, our members have never lost heart and have pioneered the path of women's peace unyieldingly with an unchanging heart. Therefore, I would like to give a big round of applause to express my infinite gratitude and love for them, and also for the women leaders who have never failed to give us their encouragement and participation. 

God prepared the Korean people 

Distinguished guests from home and abroad, and beloved WFWP members! Even now tens of millions of innocent lives are being lost each year to war, disease, starvation and natural disasters that arise in all parts of the world. In every field you observe, be it religion, politics, education, culture or ideology, all people, ranging from individuals to large masses of people, are deeply mired in the swamp of self-centered egoism and are raising walls around themselves. We now live in a world where everyone is cut off from one another, for there is no communication between them.

When all is said and done, the problems afflicting humanity can only be resolved through the ideology of one family under God—in other words, the ideology based on true love, which my husband and I, the True Parents, have received from Heaven and have championed and taught throughout our lives. This is because this ideology is the only way for humankind to find the path toward peace and happiness.

Ladies and gentlemen! That path, however, is not an easy one. It requires us to shed copious amounts of blood, tears and sweat, and to make unbearable sacrifices at times. This is because God has been suffering from the moment our first ancestors, whom He created as His children, fell and inherited Satan's lineage and disappeared into darkness. Have you ever thought about the long, dark tunnel of indemnity our Heavenly Father has had to pass through as He waited and endured tens of thousands of years of excruciating heartache so great that His very bones shed tears and His very flesh trembled?

My fellow leaders! As He endured such pain, God raised and prepared the central people of the providence in silence over a period of thousands of years. You well know the history of how God sent His only begotten son Jesus Christ to earth 2,000 years ago to save humankind. The result, however, was a truly wretched one. The leaders of Judaism and the people of Israel, who were supposed to receive Jesus as the Messiah and follow him with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience, instead forced him to walk the path of the cross, didn't they?

In the end, Jesus left behind the words, "It is finished,” referring only to spiritual salvation, and left this world. Sadly, it was only after 2,000 years of preparation that his Second Coming could finally take place on the Korean Peninsula, miles and miles away. From long ago, the Korean people have worshiped God as the highest and primal ancestor of their forefathers. They called God—that single being, the Creator and Ancestor of all people—Hananim, combining hana (one) and nim (most honored), "The Revered One,” and attended Him as the Lord, and this is why all numbers begin from one.

Because the Korean people have attended God as their original Ancestor, the spirit of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values are alive in their spirit and tradition and have been continued to this day. In the course of over 5,000 years of history, not once have they invaded or plundered another nation or people, because the spirit of benefiting all humankind flows in the veins of the Korean people. Furthermore, the spirit of filial piety, fidelity and loyalty, which are the fundamental virtues of human life, is still alive and breathing in Korean history.

God prepared the Korean people and laid down the foundation for the providence to receive the Messiah, based on these noble Korean values and traditions. Thus, through the spirit of the Korean Peninsula, the True Parents of humankind and the king of kings could finally be manifested on earth after receiving the seal of Heaven.

Our top priority

Beloved WFWP members and leaders! The path that humanity should take is now clear to us. The Foundation Day of Cheon Il Guk, which Heaven has revealed and declared through True Parents, is only a year away. Heaven's blessings will be with you on your ambitious and busy course.

If you view the flow of history from the viewpoint of providential history, you can see that the changes of the times can be broadly classified into three stages. The first is the era of worldly matters—that is, a time when materialism took precedence. The second is the era of human affairs, a humanistic era when people’s knowledge and Heaven's impartial emotions took precedence in dominating the world. However, these eras were transitional.

They were eras we needed to undergo in the process of entering the era in which people can rid themselves of their fallen nature, return to their original selves and live as one united family under God as their Heavenly Parent. The era of the final stage is the era of heavenly affairs, in which human beings should follow the path of living for the sake of others, by establishing an absolute standard based on their internal and external purification through the Marriage Blessing Ceremony. In short, it is the era we are living in today, which is the time of opening the era of Cheon Il Guk, when we can return to the heart of the one true God. I hope you will bear this in mind forever.

Once the era of substantial Cheon Il Guk unfolds, the Association of the Union of the Spiritual and Physical Worlds will govern all things in the universe from the central axis position. What that means is that the spiritual and physical worlds will be connected and substantially united, and the providence will be carried out according to the heavenly law and the heavenly way. Elections of a secular nature will no longer be seen on this earth, and humanity will become one great family through intercultural and interracial marriage and enjoy peace and happiness in everlasting prosperity. Such a day is almost before our eyes.

As part of the preparations for that day, on February 14, 2010, we proclaimed before the entire world the beginning of the "heavenly calendar." The existing solar and lunar calendars will supplement the heavenly calendar, which will newly record and denote the providence, from the positions of Cain and Abel. Henceforth, you all need to engrave True Parents' teachings onto your bones and practice them in your lives. You must take this seriously. If you do not prepare now, you surely will be left behind. We should learn from the courage and fortitude of the white-necked cranes that fly across the Himalayas, which are more than 7,000 meters high, in preparation for winter. 

I believe that, based on the public laws and principles of the universe, our WFWP members should engage themselves in the task of forming sound families in accordance with the heavenly way and rightly establishing their societies and nations with a special sense of mission. However, I would like to emphasize once again that the movement we should prioritize before anything else is the true family movement of living for the sake of others based on true love, carried out in conjunction with appropriate education regarding values. We also need to play a leading role in bringing about the unification of North and South Korea, which has been declared as God's homeland, and consequently world peace, through education of ideology and the practice of true love.

Wars and conflicts arise from selfish motives of desiring to take others' land, possessions or the like by force. On the other hand, peace arises from investing oneself for others, that is, giving true love. In the era of heavenly affairs—the final stage, in which we should follow the path of living for the sake of others—the Cold War has come to an end and new hopes for peace and social justice are spreading out across the entire globe at an amazing rate. Those leaders who turn their faces away from the new realities of the world or who fail to see them will be wiped away by the changes coming upon us like a tsunami. I believe the time has come now for us to step forward boldly and usher in new opportunities and values.

My dear WFWP members and women leaders! Women are not merely the supporters of men, or those who need their protection; rather, women are independent individuals who, as the representatives of the other side of God's nature, are meant to make men more complete and manly. Centered on the ideal of true love, women are the precious object partners of men's love. In terms of value, men and women are absolutely equal. Thus, men and women, united as one through the original true love under God's ideal of true love, were created to become completely equal beings in terms of value, centering on true love, by sharing with one another not only equal status and equal rights of participation but also their possessions. 

Therefore, men and women do not need to confront or contend with each other, for they do not need to imitate the other's characteristics, dispositions or roles or to covet and take them by force. Instead, by giving what they have to the other with true love and completing the other, they can become united as a bigger whole and share with one another. In the twenty-first century, women should play a major role in world history by serving as one of the wheels of the engine, pulling forward the construction of a peaceful world, together with men. Going beyond the century of power and technology, women are the central axis in building the century of love and the peace culture, and their role will be more important than ever before.

Even though today's world is filled with confusion and chaos, the women's peace movement of WFWP, united under God's vision of true love, should soar up to a whole new level based on our achievements of the past twenty years. We should strengthen our network with global women leaders for the expansion of the women's peace movement, dedicating ourselves to the utmost with the conviction that we can purify this world to become a beautiful world of peace wherein God's ideal of creation can be realized. If we can do so, God's absolute authority and the divine protection and great blessings of the spirit world will be with us.

My dear women leaders! Let us all walk the path of the true mother, true wife, true daughter and true woman leader, who can construct a unified world overflowing with true freedom, peace and happiness.

Thank you for your attention, and may the blessings of God be with your families and all the work that you do. Thank you.