Today we continue our celebration of True Children’s Day with this special reading.
Historical Children’s Day
October 28, 1980
Today is the historical Children’s Day. God cannot erect His kingdom alone; He needs a champion, an assistant to act as mediator. You are His children, called to this task. God regards you as the champions whom He has hand-picked to create the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. What an overwhelming task for Him!
The Unification Church is one family. If the head of a family thinks only about himself, the family becomes unhappy. The success and happiness of a family flow from the head of the family who cares for all the members. My deepest concern and care dwells with each one of you, and you in turn should love and care for each other as brothers and sisters, advancing hand in hand to meet True Parents.
Misunderstanding of Cain and Abel
The Cain-Abel theory in the Unification Church is very strong, but sometimes I worry that it may not be understood correctly. Our tradition is to follow an Abel figure, but have you also given that same kind of fidelity to your brothers and sisters? Leaders sometimes have the mistaken idea that they can exercise sole authority, but I want you to know that Abel is only Abel when he saves Cain; Abel must love and embrace Cain and bring him to the mother. Cain and Abel must unite before any restoration takes place.
However, your central figure will not lead you to the Kingdom of Heaven; you must unite among yourselves, centered on him, and then you can enter heaven. If your central figure only wants you to unite around him, rather than with each other, he is a false central figure. On the contrary, even if you don’t get along with your leader on occasion, but still you take care of your brothers and sisters, your leader will look for you, because without you he cannot be successful.
A new declaration
Today I am declaring a new beginning: the leader-centered movement is over and the member-centered movement is going to begin.
Our ultimate goal is Canaan. On the journey towards Canaan, our supreme duty is to follow orders, but once we enter Canaan, we no longer live by commands, but by love. This is that time. We are now arriving, and we must live in a God-like way. During the first 21-year course, we were marching towards Canaan, but in the next 21 years, we shall live by love. After their miraculous escape from Egypt, had the Israelites been concerned about each other instead of complaining about Moses, the older generation would not have been destroyed in the wilderness. During the Exodus, the highest virtue is to follow our leader, but in the promised land we shall live by give and take with our brothers and sisters.
My teaching to you is to love one another as much as you love God and True Parents. Then the dwelling of God will be among you, and Mother and I will accompany you. Because this day marks the beginning of that new era, I called this the historical Children’s Day.
Jesus as an example
Jesus practiced this way of life with his twelve apostles. In his most sacred act, washing the feet of his disciples, he demonstrated that he came not to be served, but to serve. His was the supreme expression of love. Jesus became the central figure linking twelve people. However, even these disciples abandoned him in the end.
In the Sermon on the Mount, you can find a revealing phrase, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” The Bible did not say that only those who obey commands will enter heaven, but rather those who make peace. How many people have you made harmony with? To love each other in effect means to love the whole world, because the Unification Church is a small world; what you do here has significance on a worldwide level.
Jesus also said, “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of you.” Your prayer is not powerful when you pray singly; only when you pray together. Brothers and sisters must truly unite so they can share life together. I want you to realize how strongly your behavior affects the person next to you; you cannot think of yourselves as isolated individuals. Within our movement, we must feel concern for each other; if someone is hurt or ill, forget your meals and go attend him. Concentrate on caring for your brothers and sisters and creating an atmosphere in which good and healthy relationships can grow.
Love each other as you love God
God is almighty, but even after thousands of years of toil, the world remains sinful. In order to realize His ideal, God has given us the mandate to love our brothers and sisters as much as we love Him. In other words, each of you should be God to your brothers and sisters, treating each other as you would treat God. If you live this tradition, God will embrace you as His true children. Many people have said that they love God, but they abused and even hated their own brothers and sisters. Now God wants us to love each other and together come to Him. Your level of heartistic achievement in the spirit world will be determined by such intensity of love.
My teaching to you is this: love the world as much as you love God and True Parents. God feels greater joy when He sees you loving each other more than you love Him. Don’t shy away from adverse conditions or from smelly or ugly people; they are the ones who need you. Willingly attend to the dirty places and make them fragrant. Don’t run away from problems, but face them and conquer them.
You have come from all different races and nations and ancestries, and I am trying to mold you according to one heavenly standard. As individual truth bodies, you cannot of course be melted down into nothing and rebuilt from scratch! But I hive resolved to help you in the most fundamental spheres: life and true love.
God and Satan are trying to hook you
You think you are independent people, but I see many hooks and wires attached to you. Satan is throwing his hooks at you. Are you slippery, or do you have many nooks and crannies where he can grab you? It is not easy to escape him, since you are more susceptible to the satanic element than to the heavenly element.
Each person is a target in the cosmic competition, for both Satan and God are throwing hooks at you. Depending on the kinds of niches you have, either Satan or God can snag you. In general, your mind is more susceptible to God’s hooks and your body vulnerable to Satan’s hooks. Therefore, you have to smooth over the satanic niches and create niches where God can hook you.
Sometimes I regret having met God. It has been like grabbing a tiger by the tail. Since there is no way I can let go, I just hang onto Him until the end.
Each person you meet is a gateway to God
You have to overcome divisions and become glued together with the love of God. There are four directions and four seasons of three months each. Spring, summer, autumn and winter gyrate in one grand circle; when you complete one dispensational circuit, you may start over and go in the opposite direction.
When you arrive at heaven in spirit world, you will see twelve gates of pearl. Would you want to be eligible to enter only one of heaven’s gates, or all twelve? If you can enter all twelve gates, then you can have total freedom of movement. To receive your pass to all twelve gates, you must serve 36 people; then you can enter both heaven and hell.
So look at each person as one portal of heaven, one gateway to God, and resolve to melt his or her heart and win him or her. There are twelve styles of personality. A soft person is the spring gate, for instance, and a tough person is a winter gate. Think of yourself as a parent, and each day select a different person to love and care for until you encompass all twelve types. Love all varieties of people — black and white, young and old. etc. The cardinal rule is to forget yourself.
Those who can harmonize with others will rise higher and higher and ultimately become great leaders. If a blessed couple, for instance, thinks only about their own family, they are in the wrong; they should worry about others before being preoccupied about themselves. The blessed couples who first devote themselves to the brothers and sisters shall be admitted to heaven. The 36 couples are the elders of our church, and this rule applies to them as well. Unless they love the True Children and the members more than their own families, they are the enemies of our movement.
Significance of the 36 couples
There is another important way of categorizing people: those who are married, those who are engaged or are living together without formal ceremony, and those who are virgin. The married people represent Adam’s family, in which the husband and wife joined out of their own will. The engaged people represent Jesus, who came to look for his own bride, but was not able to achieve his goal. The third group represent the second advent, people who can be matched by heaven.
Twelve of each of these three categories were chosen as ancestors of mankind; they are the 36 blessed couples. Their mandate is to unite all 36 types of people, harmonizing the twelve different personalities and the three types of relationships. I have been serving those 36 couples, those tough individuals — matching them, providing them with homes, sending them on trips, etc. When they come to America, Mother and I shop for them, buying them clothes and furniture.
On observing this, some people may think that the 36 couples are the masters of the Unification Church, but that is wrong. Through them, I have been setting an example of service for you. If I were to ask them, they would immediately go to the jungles of Africa. After you serve twelve types of people and 36 couples, serving one God and one set of True Parents is an easy task!
The heavenly dispensation is like a relay game, with each person carrying the baton in his turn, passing it back and forth, down through the 36 couples. Some of you don’t want to look at these 36 couples, who are all Korean, but I am telling you that you need them. Without them there is no foundation or backbone for the Unification Church. The backbone carries the central nervous system, linking it with every tissue in the body. The 36 couples perform that role in the Unification Church.
What matters is not whom Mother or I love the most, but who will be the king or queen of loving brothers and sisters. You can even hold a love competition. Whether I am present or not should not matter, for you already know the secret of going to heaven — loving each other.
From today on, our membership around the world shall perfect this heavenly way of life.
