An excerpt from Rev. Hwang's sermon at the headquarters church in Seoul on November 1, 2004

The era of Cheon Il Guk [the Nation of Cosmic Peace and Unity] has come, and the people have been chosen, but in order to open the gates of the nation, there needs to be sovereignty. As part of the process of establishing this sovereignty, the center has been established. This is because the building of the nation will start from the center and spread outward. This center is the Ancestors of Goodness, who, internally, came into being through the Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony of the Parents of Heaven and Earth Opening Cheon Il Guk on February 6, 2003, and externally, became the king and queen of peace. In other words, they become the royal blessed couple.

The center was established in the course of erecting the sovereignty of Cheon Il Guk, and the Peace UN was founded so that this center can establish the surrounding and peripheral parts. So the basic mold for building a new nation centered on God was formed during the past three years, and that nation emerged externally in 2004.

It can be stated that 2004 is the year when the king of peace emerged. This is the year when the kingdom of peace must be built on earth, centered on the king of peace. The focus of the providence [in Korea] for the last ten months has been to engraft all groups to the king of peace. The wild olive trees need to be cut down and engrafted with the king of peace. That's how the peace kingdom will be fully established.

The question of how the central figure is to be engrafted to others, how various groups will be engrafted centered on the central figure, is the issue of how legitimacy [in terms of lineage] will be established. This is why True Parents have emphasized the importance of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience in establishing this legitimacy and why they are emphasizing these qualities this year more than ever before.

Furthermore, True Parents have proclaimed absolute values. Absolute values are the heavenly principles. Because God created all things with love, the purpose of existence, or the purpose of the Creation, is for all that God created to become the perfected embodiment of love. Everyone is an individual truth incarnation, but at the same time, we must become perfected embodiments of love, thereby fulfilling the purpose of life. As a result, the process of engaging with a partner so as to perfectly embody love is indispensable. There is a fundamental relationship with a partner. When we look through Father's speeches, we find that he has asked, "Why is it that parents can't help loving their children? One receives love and becomes the embodiment of love only through inheriting love. This is why God created parents inevitably to love their children."

After Mrs. Kang Hyun-shil was blessed to St. Augustine, I congratulated her. I told her, "You will be blessed and receive a lot of love." She asked me what I had meant, so I explained to her that St. Augustine is a very warm-hearted man. He put forward the concept of the church that can be summed up as "The church is a holy place not because holy people are here, but because evil or unholy people who come here become holy. The church is holy not because the followers are holy but because God who is at the center is holy and Jesus is holy, and the church is a place where unholy people come and become holy."

Although we are not following St. Augustine, what is clear is that, following a similar pattern, we are going to bring about Cheon Il Guk and establish order centered on God and on True Father, who is the king of peace, in accordance with the Principle and what Father has taught.

The most important thing is that we need to be engrafted. Our branches need to be connected properly to the trunk, so that we can receive the essential juices and life elements. In order to do this, the most crucial thing is for our legitimacy and identity to be clear. The Israelites lost these. The second Israel lost them also. We must not lose them. This is the first condition and at the same time, the attitude we must have is to be able to continuously forgive, understand, love, and embrace. The most fundamental reason why this is possible is because no matter how evil we may be, the relationship between God and man is one between a parent and child. There is a difference in quality when this is compared with the relationship between a parent and servant. Inheritance cannot occur between a master and a servant. No matter how outstanding a servant is, a servant is still a servant. A servant cannot become an inheritor. But no matter how terrible a child is, a child is still a child. It is not a matter of quantity, but a matter of quality.

When I was the regional leader of Yongdeungpo [in southern Seoul], one reporter from the Segye Times came to me. He said that he was struggling over the fact that he was the third consecutive generation of only sons and was therefore the only hope for the continuation of the family lineage. And, if he received the blessing, he felt he would have to receive a Japanese wife, which also had its challenges. He said, "There isn't anything particularly special about getting blessed. In fact there are plenty of people who are blessed who are worse than the people who are not in the church. Wouldn't it be better to have a secular marriage and live a good life? Wouldn't I be showing filial piety toward my parents and God if I lived a better life than that of blessed members?"

So I said, "Well, that may seem to be correct when seen from a humanistic point of view. But the blessing is not so much a matter of quantity but of quality. If one doesn't receive the blessing one is a servant no matter how good one is. If one receives the blessing, no matter how bad one may be, a son is still a son. There is line between a servant and a son that can never be crossed."

From the beginning, True Parents have explained that ours is a religion of the heart, which teaches that God cannot help but love humankind and ultimately must save us. The most fundamental reason for this is that our relationship with God is one of parent and child. In addition, what we must realize without fail, no matter what the obstacles, is the relationship between parent and child, and between brothers and sisters. The difference between the Unification Church and other religions can be found here.

So we are working toward settlement now. From a vertical viewpoint, the central basis is that our legitimacy and identity must be absolutely clear; furthermore, we have to always have our door wide open and be able to understand, forgive, love, and embrace... A very warm church, a comfortable church, a comfortable community -- a community of heart. This is what must become our identity.

Korean Christianity was persecuted for the forty years during which Korea was a colony of Japan. The Christian church was liberated when this persecution ended. The first controversy that the Korean Church faced was the issue of how to treat those who had betrayed their faith by worshipping at shrines during the years under the Japanese.

People who would have opposed St. Augustine, and thus did not want to welcome such people back into the mainstream, created their own denomination around that time. This was the Koshin denomination. Their theology still exists today. They declared themselves a church that draws a clear line between those they will and will not allow to come in.

We are different, however. We believe that God is the only one qualified to judge a person in a particular situation, but God can't help wanting to embrace us because we are His children; He considers one lost sheep more precious than the ninety-nine that are not lost; He longs more for the prodigal son who is away from home than for the eldest son He is living with. God is our parent. This is the culture that we must have.

True Parents have told us to finish doing all that needs to be done by 2012. With that as a guide, the time between 2001 and 2003 was the time to have been putting down roots. There are nine years ahead of us. We can split these into three periods of three years each. During the first period we need to build the central foundation. In the three years that follow that, the growth period, we will need to develop the trunk and branches, and finally we will have to reap fruit during the last three years.

Therefore, because the central trunk, that is, the king of peace, took his position in 2004, we now must connect the central bones. We must connect thick, strong bones, not weak ones. Each group must build and weave a permanent central bone, even if it is only small. Each individual has to see whom among their tribe can come forth and align with each other to create that bone, and see whom out of the members of the mountain hiking club or ambassadors of peace can step forward, align themselves and contribute. In effect, the issue of the present providence is to prepare so that eventually, next year, the main bones can move as one whole, and smaller bones can be engrafted representing many hands and feet that can take action.

True Father said that during the king of peace awards ceremony in the United States on March 23, being overwhelmed with passion, he could not finish the last conclusive phrase, "Until the day cries of peace ring throughout the lands of Israel, and until North and South Korea embrace each other and sing songs of peace, I will not stop moving forward." He has always lived this way.

I hope that in this precious allotted time, we can reflect upon the past once more, and greet True Parents with a new heart, prepare for the coming month and have the strong conviction to bring this year to a successful conclusion.

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