406. The Engagement Ceremony and the Holy Wedding

Book 4: May You Blossom, My Beloved
Part 2: The Holy Wedding and the Path of the Bride of Heaven
Chapter 2: The Engagement Ceremony and the Holy Wedding

The Engagement Ceremony

To remedy the mistake made by the human ancestors Adam and Eve, You established tens of thousands of people in the course of 6,000 long years. However, we know only too well that those heavenly workers, whom You had sent down to earth after entrusting Your very heart and soul to them, did nothing but betray, ostracize, curse and blame You. You also have overlooked any betrayals that we, their descendants of today, have committed and kept an unchanging heart, refraining from shedding tears of sorrow as You overcame difficult crisis after crisis and climbed precarious hill after hill. Therefore, we should become sons and daughters who can open our hearts to You and be grateful to You.

We have raised our weak hands to Heaven, with our hearts overflowing with earnestness, and called out to You, our Heavenly Father, over and over again, so please allow us to realize the earnest wish of our heart. You know that we are the Unification group who share the heart of Heaven and who wish to see, hear and live with You and never leave You. This group of people was not connected through secular means; they made their way here because human beings were born after receiving heavenly love and they wish to find their way back to the original hometown of their fatherland. We can keenly feel every movement of our flesh and blood, and the beating of the heart resonating in our chest, and we know that they represent the heart of 1,000 years at this very moment.

This is not a time of sorrow, but one in which we cannot help but appeal to You and cry out loud in sheer joy because we are unable to suppress this earnestness overflowing in our hearts. Therefore, Heavenly Father, please free Yourself from the hard work You have carried out until now as You led me for the past 40 years of my life. Please know that everything that has been done to find the name of True Parents was done for Heaven, because I knew, before anyone else, how lonely You were and how much unfairness You had suffered. Your son and daughter, who stand here concerned about Your Will, will dedicate the rest of their lives to achieve Your Will. So, Father, we truly hope and pray that You will not let us become Your son and daughter who commit a fault in any way in front of Heaven, regardless of whether we live or die.

We know that Your path grows lonelier with every step, and Your steps are such that Your worry grows with each one You take. Father, we earnestly hope and pray that You will allow this day to be the one that You have sought for 6,000 years, and that You will let this day be recorded in history as the day on which Your new undertaking was established in front of the entire universe.

Heavenly Father, we have come to learn that when You set a date and time, You never let that appointed time be missed in Your plans and Your work. Those of us gathered here today stand in the position where we can shed tears of sorrow filling up our hearts for Heaven and offer words of gratitude to You. However, there still remain the 30 million people of Korea who are still fettered to the authority of utter darkness, as well as the 2.8 billion lives on this earth who are in the realm of death and do not know where to go, and we need to take responsibility for them. Therefore, please give us energy if we lack energy, and abilities if we lack abilities.

Please establish this one day as a day of victory, and please appear above all created things in heaven and on earth so that they can completely set the condition for liberation and appeasement of sorrow, for which You long have sought. We are grateful that this is the time when we can conclude our victory over the satanic world. We know that at this very point in time, we are raising the banner of victory and Satan is tasting the sorrow of defeat, and thus we have exchanged lives with those on the other side. Therefore, heaven, please raise high the banner of victory, and earth, return the rewards of joy to Father.

Glory, glory, infinite glory! We know that this is a moment when heaven and earth can harmonize in joy, so please, Father, do not take this moment of joy away from all our descendants of all generations to come. And Father, please allow us to become Your children who can march forward toward the satanic world, and please help us make the pledge to dedicate our heart and soul to become the heroes of restoration as quickly as possible.

Please accept this daughter You have established today, and crown her with the laurel wreath of victory and allow her to become the daughter who can appease the sorrows of Your heart. I hope and pray that, from this day forward, only the glory of victory will be with You, Father, and that You will be with all of our members following their own path. I pray this in the name with which You have sent me. (150-112, 1960.03.27)

Mother was 17 years old at the time of the Holy Wedding. I was 40 years old. As a fully grown man, I received a young lady of 17 years as my wife and placed her in the position of True Mother. This was unacceptable in the eyes of the world, but I had to do it for the sake of the providence. There was no other way. Ever since I received her as Mother, I have been leading the providence with her. So when we were engaged, I explained everything about the path I had to follow, saying, "This is the way I must go.” Mother respects me because whatever I do is in accordance with the providential program. I also gave her basic guidelines, saying, "If you are attacked in this way, you need to overcome it like this. If you are attacked in that way, you must do things that way.” Mother respects me because I do what I say I will do. Even though the path is difficult, I overcome each obstacle and move forward. (236-109, 1992.11.03)

The meaning of the Holy Wedding

For Jesus to fulfill his purpose in his lifetime, he needed to find his Bride. But he was not able to do so. That is why he left the concept "I am the Bridegroom, and you are the Bride'' as his last testament. The resurrected Jesus looked for the Bride throughout the world. He searched for the best candidate among the most faithful believers within the realm of the Second Israel, regardless of nationality. For the past 2,000 years, he made continual efforts in search of her. When he finds the Bride, the true human ancestors can emerge; when the true human ancestors emerge, the True Parents can emerge. Originally in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve should have become the true human ancestors and should have been installed as the true parents. However, due to the Human Fall, it is only now in the era of the Second Coming, after 6,000 years have passed, that God could find the true ancestors of humankind. (019-163, 1968.01.01)

Some historians say that in the 1960s history entered a time of great transition. The perspective of the Unification Principle is that although Korea became the base for the Christian cultural sphere to receive the Messiah, the Christian cultural sphere failed when it did not accept me. Nevertheless, we can assert that once the Holy Wedding had been held in the name of God and True Parents, history finally began turning in a new direction. In the present circumstances, history is full of changes. It appears that humankind is declining and descending into a world of death and that the world, beset by many divisions, is heading for destruction. At the same time, we can realize that the scope of historical events is moving beyond national and regional levels and expanding to the world. Ever since we entered the providential era during which we had to expand our foundation horizontally based on the bond of the God-centered lineage that we have with True Parents, the world has been beset by ideological confusion. Traditions have been falling into chaos. Things are being shaken up. Christianity also is being totally shaken up.

The Holy Wedding was held 14 years after Korea's liberation from Japan. During that time, the Christian churches in Korea were either those that were rebuilding after years underground or those that had survived because their members had followed the dictates of the Japanese and offered bows at Shinto shrines. The way began to open up by which God could lead the providence with Korea as its base and make a leap to expand to the world. The starting point for this transition was True Parents' Holy Wedding that took place in April 1960. After the Holy Wedding Ceremony, Parents' Day was inaugurated. That was the day when we finally could clear up humankind's history, a history imprisoned by bonds of defiled love, life and lineage from the false parents. The original love, life and lineage centered on God were newly planted and began to deepen their roots on earth. Although the world that had received the fallen archangel's lineage had continued up to that point, from that day in 1960 when the True Parents emerged, the lineage of the original Adam and Eve began to take root centering on God's love. (196-218, 1990.01.01)

April 11, 1960, was the day of True Parents' Holy Wedding. Externally speaking, it was an ordinary day; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. However, the Holy Wedding that took place on that day made it a day totally different from any other in history. Because of that day, human history is now in the hands of one person. At the moment of that one person's coming, were the circumstances prepared such that he could build a relationship with a nation and with the world? Did the circumstances of that moment have a strong enough foundation to pass on to him its relationships with history, with the present age, and with the future? The ceremony itself may appear to have been a simple event, but once people realize that it was the core event representing the entirety of human history, people throughout history will study to understand the significance of every aspect of that one day. (032-069, 1970.06.21)

We cannot fail, because we laid the family-level foundation in 1960. To put it another way: If we had not established that family foundation, we would have been doomed to fail. What a historic event was the Holy Wedding of 1960! On the foundation of the hard work carried out until now to find the one person, Adam, in the 6,000 years of the historical ages of the providence, Adam was able to set the standard on earth and receive Eve as the perfected Eve. This signifies that the divided spirit world and physical world finally can be connected as one on earth. Man represents heaven and woman represents earth. Thus the divided spirit world and physical world are connected. The wall that divides Adam and Eve and makes them enemies is broken down. The wall that blocks them from meeting God is torn down. In short, Satan is driven out. (122-097, 1982.11.01)

The peak, or apex, of the providence of restoration, occurred in 1960. At that time I was receiving persecution from the nation and the people of Korea, from all the Christian denominations and even from some of our church members. I was in a desperate, life-or-death situation. Indeed, the Unification Church was at a moment of truth; its very survival was at stake. In those difficult circumstances, I nevertheless proceeded with the Holy Wedding. At that point, a new history began. The Holy Wedding was a historic turning point. Even historians state that 1960 was a turning point. From that point on, I began resolving all the problems one by one. (052-068, 1971.12.22)

A wedding amid severe persecution

True Parents' Holy Wedding was a cosmic, momentous event, worthy of a great celebration on earth. Thereby the True Parents, as God's embodiments, gained the world-level victory in both the spiritual and earthly sense. This was the vertical indemnity condition for resolving issues on the horizontal plane on earth. In order to be in the position to conduct the Holy Wedding, I had to restore Jesus' three main disciples who failed to support him. I had to indemnify the failure of Adam to properly establish a family. Due to the Fall, Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, were unable to form a true conjugal relationship. The Fall occurred through the act of two individuals, a man and a woman. Restoration, therefore, cannot be completed by one person alone. A man cannot be restored alone, nor can a woman go to Heaven alone. Nothing can be resolved without the efforts of two individuals. After restoring the positions of unfallen Adam and Eve, these two individuals are to establish the standard of the True Parents on earth. This requires the betrothal of three disciples. (022-189, 1969.02.02)

The Holy Wedding was carried out 14 years after the liberation of Korea. In the formation, growth and completion stages, each stage is represented by a period of seven years, so it is 14 years until the end of the growth stage. Therefore, 14 years after Korea regained its independence, the failure of Jesus' mission on the national level was remedied by the Unification Church. Since Jesus came as the Adam of the growth stage, to remedy that failure on that level in the land of Korea, we had to pass through two seven-year courses of formation and growth and suppress the conditions of all the opposition surrounding the environment of the Unification Church and fight a war against all who opposed us. It was under such circumstances that the Holy Wedding was conducted.

Why did we have to do that? Because Jesus died on the cross, he could not bring about the resurrection of both the spirit and the flesh. In other words, he brought about only spiritual resurrection and not resurrection while in the flesh. Since he set the way for the providence of spiritual salvation but was unable to set the way for the providence of physical salvation, the two became separated from each other. That is why, in order to remedy all of these failures, Jesus has to take over all the domains of the spiritual world from Heaven and appear again on earth, where he still needs to go through the process of advancing forward while fighting against the satanic world. For this reason, the Holy Wedding was held in the midst of a fierce battle. Because Adam and Eve fell during the completion stage of the growth period, Jesus needs to take over the spiritual foundation centering on the standard of the 14 years until the completion stage of the growth period, and follow a course in which he must engage in the fight to expand the substantial foundation.

Such being the case, what was the biggest problem after the Holy Wedding? It was that the True Parents centered on God were born on this earth. In the course of history, many evil parents were born, but the standard of good parents centered on God had never before been established on this earth. Therefore, the day that standard was established was the day Satan had to lose everything, including his dominion over humankind that he had enjoyed since the onset of history. Since everything he had was about to be eroded from the ground-level upward, Satan's forces had no choice but to raise the flag of revolt and persecute us with all their might.

Then why were we still persecuted even after the Holy Wedding? It was because the ceremony was held at the completion level of the growth stage, and there still remained another course of seven years. The question was how to accomplish that seven-year course. Only by completing that seven-year course could we reach the realm of direct dominion. In passing through the realm of dominion based on accomplishments through the Principle and reaching the realm of direct dominion, there is a portion of responsibility to be fulfilled.

Adam and Eve should fulfill the ideal of love by which they can unite absolutely centering on God, reach a position in which they cannot be separated, no matter what happens, and form a family centered on God within the realm of direct dominion and thus lay the foundation of a family based on love. If they can do so, heaven and earth will come together on that foundation, and from the foundation where a man and a woman thus join together as one, a new foundation based on love, life and lineage will expand horizontally in all directions. The Holy Wedding was held in order to lay such a foundation. (196-213, 1990.01.01)

Even on the day before Mother assumed her position, the Ministry of Home Affairs called her in to write a report, so we had to fight against them. Since Jesus was sentenced to death in court, we needed to recover her from the court. This is restoration through indemnity. (182-297, 1988.10.26)

I had to fight up to the last minute. The day before going to the wedding venue, I had to go to the police station and write an affidavit. Numerous betrayers made accusations against me. Just as Jesus' 12 disciples betrayed him, 12 previously faithful church members banded together against me. Individuals who had been on the side of the Unification Church began to oppose me, other churches opposed me, and the nation opposed me. Just as the nation of Israel, the leaders of Judaism, and Judas Iscariot banded together and killed Jesus, I was being driven toward a similar fate. The date of the Holy Wedding was the 16th day of the 3rd lunar month in 1960. That time marked the highest peak of opposition. I stood on the dividing line between moving one step forward or one step back, between life and death, between making a new start and not making one. In those circumstances, I managed to bring a new historic result. On that day God made the greatest proclamation in human history, the proclamation that will spread heavenly fortune to the world. It was the historic day that Jesus spoke about—the day of welcoming the Bride. It was the day of True Parents' Holy Wedding. From that moment on, I could go on the offensive and take the first steps forward. Finally, I could begin resolving the problems we faced and move swiftly forward centered on God. (067-250, 1973.07.01)

After receiving a blow in court at 11:30 in the morning the day before, the Holy Wedding ceremony commenced at four o'clock in the morning. This standard was set in the midst of such struggles in order to create the foundation of peace, joy and happiness for all peoples. (183-162, 1988.10.31)

For seven years, beginning in 1953, I prepared for the Holy Wedding. Around that time virtually everyone opposed me: the nation, Christianity, and even some members. In 1955 I was incarcerated, but even in prison I fought to lay the foundation for victory. Then in 1957, I began preparing for the Blessing in earnest. I fasted for 40 days and exhorted the members to evangelize in order to lay a nationwide foundation. I went on the offensive and expanded our witnessing activities throughout the nation. I raised the Unification Church to a new level. In this way, by 1960 I had laid a nationwide foundation and made an impact on the nation. So, although I was opposed by the nation and by Christianity on the national level, it was still possible for me to proceed with the Holy Wedding. I had to conduct the Holy Wedding in circumstances similar to those of Jesus when he was arrested and made to go the way of the cross. Indeed, at the time of the Holy Wedding, the nation opposed me and Christianity opposed me. They were united against me. (111-199, 1981.02.20)