Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 37

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 2: The Birth of True Parents
Chapter 2: True Mother’s Birth
Section 3: Spirit-led Churches, Paragraph 9-16

9 One day, Rev. Heo Ho-bin told my mother about a revelation that she had received. “I was told that you should go to Anju and buy new shoes for the Returning Lord and his Bride, and also a traditional Korean hat for him.” My mother departed as soon as she heard this. She went to a well-known craftsman who made those items and asked him sincerely, “Please make them with your utmost devotion. I will pay you as much money as you want. Just make them to the best of your ability.” She gave him the sizes for the items and left. One week later, my mother went to pick up the items. She was pleased with the shoes but not with the hat. As soon as the craftsman handed her the hat, she felt her arms starting to get numb and saw the sky turning yellow. Her entire body was paralyzed, she could not move at all, and her feet were stuck to the floor. When she said to the craftsman, “You must make it again,” little by little her body returned to its normal state. My mother was very upset, and she scolded him for not making it properly. He was shaken, and he promised to try his best to make it right.

A week later, she went back to that craftsman. This time she was well pleased with the hat. She was relieved by this and, after paying for the shoes and hat, brought them back to the church in Pyongyang. Later when she shared her experience about the incident, Rev. Heo laughed with joy.

After about a month, my mother had another dream. She used to have very vivid dreams. In this dream the same man whom she had seen in her dream the previous month appeared again and said, “I need to go to the North and study more. So prepare your favorite sleeping pad and blanket; also a suit of clothes. Put them in my backpack for me to carry with me.” She answered that she would do so, and returned home. Still in the dream, she entered her house, and amazingly, a clean blanket and sleeping pad were already prepared and waiting for her. There was even a suit of clothes; it was light-colored and the fabric was of excellent quality. Thinking, “How incredible! How can I ever express my gratitude enough?” she packed them in a backpack with wholehearted devotion and offered it to the man.

As he put it on his back, he said to her, “I will be back in three years. During that time, do not change your heart. Just wait for me!” He whistled a tune as he departed on his solitary journey. As she watched his back receding into the distance, my mother cried and cried. He looked so lonely as he departed to study in the North. She thought to herself, “Of course, my heart will not change. Although I am just an ordinary woman, this distinguished man sincerely requested that I not change my heart for three years.” She was so overwhelmed by his loving heart toward her that she could not stop crying. Then she woke up. In this way my mother, Daemonim, met the Returning Lord ahead of time, in her dreams.

10 In August 1946, one of the Inside the Womb Church members defected to the communist authorities. Rev. Heo Ho-bin and other Inside the Womb Church leaders were arrested by the police and imprisoned at the Daedong Detention Center. During the interrogation, whenever they asked Rev. Heo, “When will the baby Jesus be born?” she kept on saying, “In a few days.” That was what the messages from heaven had told her to say.

She had told the members of her church that the Lord of the Second Advent would be released from the prison, so every day about 20 to 30 members of her church clad in white clothes waited for the Lord outside the jail. In the meantime, internal security officers confiscated all the clothes that had been made for the Returning Lord over many years. Hence, heaven gave a message to the church members that they had to make them all again. It took them an entire year to make the clothes, yet even by then, Rev. Heo had not yet been released.

11 Sometime in June of 1946, Father left Seoul and went to Pyongyang in the North. He evangelized there and found a lecture room in Gyeongchang-ri where he could meet his followers. Around that time the communist authorities began to persecute religious groups. Rev. Heo Ho-bin and her main church leaders were incarcerated at the Daedong Detention Center, charged with operating a pseudo-religion.

Father was incarcerated at the same facility. He was charged with two counts: leading a pseudo-religion, similar to the charge against Rev. Heo, and being a spy for South Korean President Syngman Rhee.

The Inside the Womb Church was prepared in the position of the providential Bride, but it failed to come to True Father, who was in the position of the Bridegroom. From inside the prison Father twice sent messengers to Rev. Heo to let her know who he was, but she rejected those messages. Yet even in the prison God continued to work to bring her to Father. Father was imprisoned for 100 days, beginning on August 11. During that time he attempted to contact Rev. Heo Ho-bin several times, but she never recognized who Father was, even to the very end of her life. She rejected God’s providential efforts to approach her and His loving heart to spare her life and ended up going the way of faithlessness and death.

On November 21, Father was thrown out of the prison, on the verge of death due to the severe torture he had undergone in the prison, and he survived thanks to God’s grace. The other leaders of the Inside the Womb Church were also tortured at that time. All of them were later executed, some time after the Korean War began. This is a living lesson given to us from history: how severe and tragic the fate that befalls those who are called to a providential mission should they fail to fulfill the responsibility for which heaven has blessed them and showered them with grace.

12 My mother, Daemonim, and my maternal grandmother, Jo Won-mo, lived their entire lives with faith in order to receive the Returning Lord. They never compromised; they never settled into a comfortable family life. Instead, they totally immersed themselves in serving God with their utmost devotion. Since my mother walked a path of trials and tribulations in order to receive the Returning Lord, I naturally participated in doing so along with her. My grandmother, mother and I would sacrifice anything for the way of the Will. That is why God was continually with our family.

13 As we see from the life of my mother, Hong Soon-ae, we should live a life of which we can be proud. Out of the four persons who are parents of the True Parents, my mother is the only one who attended True Father until the end. For this reason True Father bestowed on her the title Daemonim. Before she received this title, she offered endless prayers, shedding tears of anguish. Her sincere devotion was a devotion that heaven alone could understand. Before she met True Father, she prayed that God would guide her to meet the Returning Lord. After she met True Father, she prayed even more deeply for the entire True Family, because she was well aware how hard Satan was trying to invade the True Family spiritually. She fought with Satan to protect the True Family; in fact, she kept on praying for them even during the ten years when she was suffering from failing health.

14 From now on none of you should accumulate wealth for yourself. It is good to be frugal, but I suggest that you be frugal so that you can make a greater offering for the Will. You should be able to invest all your savings for your clan, for your nation, and for the reunification of Korea. Do not think only of your own family. The only thing you need is a heart burning with love for God. Like Daemonim, you should live 24 hours a day thinking only of how you will fulfill the Will of God and True Parents. She had nothing else in her heart but that; she did not think of anything else. Because of this she deserves our utmost respect. That is why I bestowed on her the title Daemo, “Great Mother.”

15 After True Parents’ Holy Wedding, Daemonim and True Mother had to work hard to deal with criticism from all kinds of women, ranging from the wife of the laborer to a lady from the line of the royal family. Mother could not endure this all by herself; three generations—grandmother Jo Won-mo, Daemonim and True Mother—had to face it together. Knowing Daemonim had fulfilled her responsibility in this, I gave her the title Daemo, which means “Great Mother.”

The way of love that all women have to walk has high walls to overcome. Unless True Mother could take those walls down, women would come to blame her. Daemonim appealed to God, crying out that she could take all True Mother’s burdens on her behalf, and she actually did so. She also ardently prayed that she could dissolve all the worries, bitterness and sorrows of the True Family.

Now, having passed through the painful path of sacrifices, we have come to the era when we can go over the national level and even the world level and proceed toward the world of unity and liberation. Hong Soon-ae truly accomplished all her responsibilities; hence, she deserves to be attended by all. That is why I named her Daemonim.

As an example to your families and descendants, all of you should inherit Daemonim’s heart of single-minded loyalty and establish a proper tradition of attending God. This grandmother lived only to attend God. In attending God in your families you should fulfill the way of a loyal heart with single-mindedness even greater than hers. On November 4, 1989, in honor of Daemonim, I created a calligraphic tribute, Chungshim Bong-shin (忠心奉身), which means “with a loyal heart she dedicated herself” to God and True Parents. Anyone, like her, who goes to the spirit world after a life of sacrifice lived with single-minded devotion will open the gate to receive blessings from God free from any accusation.

16 Daemonim’s entire life of faith and devotion had only one objective. We must especially remember that from the beginning she was part of the new providential work that included proclaiming that the Returning Lord would be born on earth as a human being. She participated in the new churches that God created for that purpose. Rev. Kim Seong-do, founder of the Holy Lord Church, was the first generation; another line was represented by Rev. Heo Ho-bin of the Inside the Womb Church. Their work laid the foundation that was bequeathed to True Mother. They formed the mainstream history from which Daemonim inherited the tradition of faith; but she was the first of these forerunners to actually attend the Returning Lord.

By giving birth to True Mother, she completed the work of these women who had labored through three generations to carry out the role of Eve. She made preparations discreetly, knowing that the Will would bear fruit in True Mothers generation. Words cannot describe all the hardships she endured. The many ordeals she had to bear throughout her life are beyond description. No one, not her siblings, her relatives or her friends, was ever able to understand her. As she walked her lonely path of faith, she even subsisted on raw pine needles. Yet her belief never changed and her faith never wavered as she established the foundation for True Mother to meet me.