Prayers, A Lifetime Of Conversation With Our Heavenly Father - Sun Myung Moon |
Heart [Part 3 of 4]
Please, Let Us Share Your Heart
Father! Today please allow all of our thoughts to move, our minds to move, and our bodies to move in the garden of your heart. We have realized that your heart is a heart of infinite love. And we have realized that your heart is an infinitely sorrowful heart and a heart that has been infinitely wounded.
Oh Father, you have been exceedingly sorrowful; you have worked exceedingly hard, and even now your mind still feels exceedingly anxious! Please let us realize that you are the Creator, and you are the Lord of all things. Please let the extreme sorrow that you experience penetrate into our breasts, and please let your extraordinary anger and indignation flow into our breasts.
Please let us become people who have experienced this, who are so submerged in sorrow that we cannot control our bodies and don't know where to go. And please let us become sons and daughters who weep, not knowing whether this is heaven or earth, unable to control our minds. We know that the altars of sorrow which continued for 6,000 years or more are due to the mistakes of our ancestors, but we are afraid that we might leave that sorrow to our descendents by once again not fulfilling our responsibility today.
Today, we have realized that we are responsible for blocking the history of misfortune in our present generation, and for saving the situation of the heart of heaven and changing it to a new heart of joy. Therefore, please allow us to share your heart.
There are many people who look like people. But if we ask what is lacking on this earth and thereby makes heaven so sorrowful, we know that it is your having no sons or daughters who can communicate with your heart or who long for your love. Since we have realized that heaven is looking for such sons and daughters, we earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will allow us to become sons and daughters who offer our full devotion, and, giving our entire minds and bodies, are able to be recognized and to have no inadequacies in front of your heart.
We do not want heaven to give us anything material, and we do not want heaven to understand our situation, and we do not want heaven to give us grace. More than that, please allow us to know the inner heart of our father who sought to celebrate after giving that grace. And we hope to become sons and daughters who are able to call our father who has been so sorrowful, "Father," and who are able to comfort our suffering father.
We earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to become sons and daughters who are able to make that our goal and not mind even a difficult path; who, even if the arrows of persecution and ridicule circle around our bodies, keep sincere hearts of devotion for our father; who are able to forget all these things and go closer towards heaven, and who are able to absorb that as internal advice.
We have prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
February 7, 1960
Please Let Us Be Moved By The Heart Of Heaven And Shed Tears
Until now we thought that you were a being of joy surrounded by glory. We thought that you were someone who would accomplish the goal and joy of liberation for us, and that you would give us blessings and wealth and prosperity in free supply.
But now that we see behind the situation of heaven, we have realized that there are internal complications, so that even if you want to give blessings you cannot, and we know the solemn truth that the grief filled history of sorrow of 6,000 years must be restored through indemnity. Now that we have understood that kind of situation, please allow us to become people who lament the foolishness of humankind who have not been able to do that.
Please let us know that you are a father who is coming to this people; that you are a father who is coming to the people of the world. We have understood that those footsteps are still soaked with tears of sorrow and there still remain walls of suffering for them. Today we will become the ramparts of our father's suffering, and become fortresses of his sorrow.
We will embrace our father's unjust suffering and grief. We must become those who know how to fight shedding blood and tears along the road of the decisive battle with the enemy in order to fulfill completely that responsibility and that mission.
Father! Please let us be moved by the heart of heaven, and please let us become people who know how to struggle and hold on to hearts of love for humankind.
We must become people who are able to embrace your heart, and look at things with tears even when we look and mountains and streams or when looking at the people of the world.
We must become the individuals that you want, and establish the families that you want, and centered on those families, we will have to build the world of the idea that you want. We have understood that the larger the scope of the building is, the more tears and blood will have to be shed.
We have understood that tears have to be shed in order to find individuals, in order to find families, and in order to find the people. When we look at this path through a human perspective, it is a depressing path, it is a path of anger, it is a path of suffering. But because it is a path you have walked, we know that is a complicated course that we must go and change to a path of joy, a path of gratitude, and a path of glory.
Please let us consider it our pride to exhaust everything we have while attending you until the last day of our lives. We earnestly hope and desire that we will become those who can run this path to the end together with you. We earnestly hope that you will let us determine once again to become those who know how to sing your praises with tears in that kind of place.
We have humbly prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
February 12, 1961
Oh Father, Who Has Walked Through This Course Of History Of Lamentations
Oh Father of great love and exceeding goodness! We don't dare think about how miserable the circumstances you have been in were or how mistreated you were or how great the wounds were to your heart and mind in order for you, our father who should be exceedingly glorious, to come to this sorrowful earth.
Oh Father who established children of goodness, and imagined in your mind a heavenly kingdom of goodness, an ideal world of goodness, and longed for the day of hope! The more earnest that your mind was hoping to establish the day of hope through the human ancestors Adam and Eve, the more your mind would have wanted to love them, and the more responsibility you would have felt for that purpose, and the more your mind would have wanted to protect Adam and Eve.
When we look back on and think about the grief-filled history in which our human ancestors betrayed and turned away from your bosom of love and your protection, we are extremely regretful, extremely angry, and extremely resentful that we were born as the descendents of fallen ancestors.
Our minds and bodies have not been able to take off the yoke of sin, and swept away by the waves of death we have become those who should be destroyed in the pits of death without any room for argument.
Through the dense course of history you have gone through so much suffering, worrying every day about us who are like that. Because your concern was great for the historical future of humankind, you have had a sorrowful mind, and you have followed the footsteps of us unworthy human beings. But we have come to know that you were not able to open your heart to anyone at any time, and we have come to know that you were not able to have any children who could comfort your heart at any time.
You have gone a difficult course of restoration like this for 6,000 years! Now having reached the Last Days, you have gathered together on the Korean peninsula our pitiful and unworthy selves, to represent this people. Accordingly, we know that this relationship absolutely did not come about by chance. We have learned through the word and have received evidence through reality, but we earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will let us realize the frightening truth that if we are not able to absorb the word and the evidence as our own, the word and the evidence will come to judge us.
Oh Father who has gathered together this Unification Movement! We know that the misery of your toil along the road of history cannot be expressed. Please do not let us forget even in our dreams your earnest heart and your situation as you gather this unworthy, weak group together and, promising us a day of victory, push us out on the path of suffering.
Please let us keep that deep in our minds even in difficult situations; and in sad situations, please let us become sons and daughters who are able to think first of our father who is shedding sorrowful tears. Even if we fall into bleak and miserable situations, we earnestly hope and pray; Father, that you will not let us become sons and daughters who forget the miserable heart of our father who has gone the path of the cross.
We know that two thousand years ago the Prince of Heaven, the Savior of all humankind, the Messiah whom you sent to this earth lived in sorrow and died. When he was born, you were concerned as he was born, and while he was growing up, you were concerned as he grew up, too. And we know that along the course of his public ministry representing you, he confronted enemies along the road of persecution and took responsibility and went the course of suffering.
We know that things were that way because our ancestors could not fulfill their responsibilities. Since we have found out the nature of all the historical crimes, please do not let us forget that we have the entire responsibility to establish reality on the earth and to relieve the grief of history.
Please do not let us forget that the lamentations of the past are urging us forward, and we earnestly hope and desire that you will not let us forget that you want to give through us whom you established first in order to let people know the mission of the age.
We have humbly prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
May 3, 1964
Please Let Us Fully Realize The Intricacies Of The Sorrowful History
Who has understood your heart, and who has understood your situation, and who has understood your hope when you could not help but go forth enduring days of sorrow as you groped your way through the long history filled with grief? Please allow us to feel once again at this time how much sympathy we should have for you, Father. You have been relating to people who haven't known about the heart and will you alone carried in your breast, the situation you faced alone, or your mind which you alone knew, and you have worked so hard in order to find one child who could be taught that hope, situation, and heart.
Please let us understand that you, our father, are not someone unrelated to us; rather, you are the father we shall live together with for eternity. And you are not someone who should have to work hard; you are the Lord who created the entire universe. Oh Father, we must become children who know how to feel deeply indignant over the fact that the one who should be embracing and loving the entire universe left behind those kinds of historical complications.
When we consider the fact that the one mistake of our ancestors became a sin which cannot be permitted even after billions of generations, we ask you to let the people here realize that there is no way to repay this even by shedding all their blood and tears, and there is no way to repay this even by sacrificing their lives ten million times.
Father! Where is the person who says he knows you, where is the person who says he will accomplish your Will, and where is the person who will dedicate his life and go forth for you? When we realize that there is no one, we who have gathered here, even though we are a pitiful and unworthy group, have determined to be loyal to you. And since we are a group which has pledged to offer our lives for you, we earnestly hope and desire that if there are any who are exhausted, you will increase their strength, and if there are any who are disappointed, you will hold on to them.
We have been ravaged by the enticements of the enemy, and we have inexpressibly pathetic situations in the sorrowful history of the past. Please do not let us become people who forget all those hearts filled with grief. Please do not allow us to become people who forget your grief and your sorrow. We earnestly hope that you will let us become your children who can appear as victors who without fail will return glory to our Father when you judge this world of sin.
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
December 26, 1965
Please Let Us Consider How Much Pain You Feel As You Sent Out Your Children
Even the hearts of parents of the fallen world feel more love in their minds after spurring on their children than they felt before spurring them on, and want to comfort them. But please let us understand how greatly your heart desired to comfort us when we were beaten and driven away from the place where you commanded us to take responsibility along the course of restoration.
And please do not let us forget that it is your mind to want to let us praise you eternally in the world of heart. You want to establish us as filial children who are able to comfort our father and call you "Father" in such a place.
Until now the course of the Unification Church has been a sorrowful course. I know very well how solitary were the footsteps of those following your commands in the midst of other people who were unable to understand.
How hard you must have worked until this religious body could be mobilized and this unification movement gathered! We know that you urged and encouraged the people who were playing, and awakened the people who were dozing, and commanded them to go. Please let us determine ourselves even now in the midst of such adverse circumstances. We understand that you are still in a situation of having to send us out.
We know that this kind of anguish will remain as the universal history of the course of indemnity. Please let us understand that you must command the individual who sets the family in good order, the family that sets the tribe in good order, the tribe that sets the people in good order, the people that sets the nation in good order, and the nation that sets the world in good order, to go out in their stead.
And please let us know how miserable your position is as you look upon the course of restoration that remains and the course of bitter indemnity which cannot help but be gone through along that path.
We understand your heartbroken mind which is not able to command anyone even if you wish to because there is no filial child who is able to understand your position. Please let us become your true children who now follow your bidding and go towards the goal, who prepare ourselves before your command, and who are able to call you "Father."
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the True Parents. Amen.
July 3, 1966
Please Let Us Become Unification Church Members Who Comfort Our Sorrowful Father
My Father! I know that you, Father -- I am calling out to you -- have been so wretched.
Father! The great majority of humankind understand that you are clothed in glory, you are ruling for ten thousand years, and are held in glory as you proclaim that you love all people, and all humankind want to be held to the breast of such a father, and want to cling to such a father.
Until now that has been the ambition of humankind. But the father that the Unification Church members are clinging to has been a father who has endured going forth gritting his teeth, looking towards a future of hope day and night in the very center of the point of death. The hope that Unification believers are longing for is to shed the tears of your painful heart, holding your hand which has been wounded along the path of thorns and the path of so much suffering and so many false charges.
No matter what anyone of the world says, our image and prestige are not the problem. We must become a group who know for sure how to go to that point gratefully even if our bodies are ripped apart and our dignity trampled upon, even when your laws of the family, become crumpled, and clouds cover everything before your Will.
We earnestly hope that you will not allow us to become a group that forgets how much you have struggled to find and establish this kind of group inside the Unification Movement.
We have humbly prayed in the name of the True Parents. Amen.
November 6, 1966
Please Find The Destined Relationship Of Heart And Accomplish The Completion Of Restoration
We cannot help but report to you once again at this time that we are ashamed before our father who has worked so hard in order to realize the Will. The providence that you manage should have been a providence of glory, and you should have watched your sons and daughters enjoying themselves in the garden of goodness, and you should have lived a life of rejoicing and joy. But because of the totally unexpected fall, your providence could not become a providence of joy; it became a providence of sorrow, suffering, and lamentation. Oh Father, who could not help but carry out this kind of providence!
At this time before you, our unworthy selves which became the motive and source of such a providence cannot help but repent for our historical guilt, and we cannot help but repent for the guilt of the present age. And we know that there still remains the will of the providence for which, on the foundation of having repented with our heads bowed, we must ask for blessings for the sake of the world of the future so hoped for by our father, who is imagining and carrying out the providence for the world of eternal peace.
When looking at things from the viewpoint of the relationship between you and us, between us and the creation, and between you and the creation, we know that there is not a single thing that was created separate from your heart of love. We know that the kind of relationship where we could communicate with your heart through our destined relationship of eternal father and son with you was broken from the day we fell, and heaven as heaven, humankind as humankind, and the things of creation as the things of creation all lost the goal they were to head for, and until now have remained in the realm of lamentations.
Oh Father of love! You have not been able to cast off the grief of the fall or the troubles of the fall, and you know well the situation of we who are groping along the path of our miserable fate. In order to permit the blessings of today, you prepared for thousands of years of history. But when we look at our state, we know that at the same time that we must receive your permission, we also have a great responsibility to have to establish the level of the blessing.
The time has come that now we must find again all the heartistic relationships that have divided heaven and humankind, and we know that the time has come that it will not do unless all people relate to each other and the broken, destined relationships of heart which are able to sing praises to heaven are formed once again.
And not only that, we should have realized the harmony of all things, taking the things of creation as materials for a life of faith, as conditional objects of victory, and as conditional objects of harmony in the eternal realm of relationships, but we cannot help but lament over the loss of all the things of creation.
Father of mercy! There are many groups wandering around looking for relationships of heart, but there are very few groups that know what your heart is like. We earnestly hope and desire that you will once again embrace humankind who are going the way of restoration without knowing your heart, tormented in the world of darkness.
Father! This day is a holy day. At this time please bless your sons and daughters who have gathered here having decided and determined to follow the footprints you have left and not to avoid this path of grief-filled destiny. We are people who have pledged to offer everything we have as sacrifices before you, looking forward to the time of victory promised in your Will. Therefore, we earnestly hope and desire, beloved Father, that you will let us become sons and daughters who head towards the goal of that Will, who step onto the field of battle, and sing the victory song, and who are not able to yield or be defeated until your glory is raised up.
On this holy day, please give your blessing to all the people, and we earnestly hope and desire that today you will connect the many groups, many peoples, and many multitudes in each place to this relationship heaven has sought.
Since we know that it is the heart of the Triune God to want to resolve the grief of restoration in order to reconnect the destined relationships which were broken, please complete restoration on that foundation of heart. And beginning from our own selves our families, people, nation, world, up to everything in heaven and on earth, we anticipate that heartistic relationships will be formed, and even though we are disloyal and unworthy, we have bowed our heads before you, Father. And since we cannot help but offer prayers of tears before you, Father, please bear with us.
Father, we earnestly ask you to create relationships between everything according to the criteria of the providence.
We have prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
April 10, 1960
Oh Father, You Have Carried Out The Providence From A Position Of More Suffering Than I
I have gone forward experiencing the position of sorrow and feeling the heart with which you have faced this world of enemies. I know the sorrow of my father who could not come out and live in the sunshine, and the situation of my father who has worked in the shadows. Until today I have gone forward in that kind of life worried that I might become a child who resents his father or who contradicts his father at some point.
And I know that when you found me, you too were worried that I might be like that. You are more anguished than I am, Father, and I know that you are preparing the path you will go feeling your responsibility from a more difficult position than I am in. I have determined not to despair or to disappoint you, even if I go through being pursued and driven out, or imprisoned with both my hands in handcuffs, or experience the lot of a slave or the lot of a servant. I thank you for your grace of letting me not die and remain in your presence from the time that I determined to do that until now.
How much have you worked, Father, in order to establish someone like this? How much have you sacrificed for the sake of the path I must go, for the sake of the family I must go to? How much have you worked for the sake of the tribe I must lead, and how much have you worked for the sake of the people and the nation I must teach and lead?
And how much have you worked for the sake of the world that this people and this nation must teach?
Ever since I realized that you work far more than the blood in our veins and arteries which moves without stopping 24 hours a day, each time I awakened from sleep I could not help but beg you to forgive me as though I were a sinner. While eating, I could not help but put down my spoon and with tears ask for forgiveness for my wrongs of the past, and each time I lay down, not being able to control my tired body, I could not help but scold myself for not being able to have a mind that was concerned abut you. Please look compassionately on my past life which has been like that.
How much humiliation you must have suffered up until now in order to eliminate so many enemies! How many times you must have suffered unjustly! How hard you must have worked in order to raise up in this way struggling groups, miserable groups which are driven out and pursued in the midst of sighs and screams on the path of death! How much you must have worked to lead us into an age when we could raise our heads and look up while relating to the people, the nation and the world! We must not become people who, even if we go through the grief of dying thousands or ten thousands of times, forget the fact that until we became as we are now, your internal sorrow has been great.
When we consider everything centered on the internal sorrow, of the heavenly side, we see that you are a being to be pitied. However much we might say that fellow named Moon of the Unification Church is to be pitied, it is nothing. I have realized how much you are to be pitied. However much we might say the children following the Unification Church today are to be pitied, we know that their sorrow cannot be compared to your sorrow, Father.
When we think of such things, we cannot accept your excessive grace, and we come to realize that we are people who must request forgiveness for our sins through minds to be pitied, who must straighten ourselves up a thousand, ten thousand times, and bow to you a thousand, ten thousand times.
When we become people like that, I know that we will not be ruined. Please let us realize that a path centered on ourselves is a path that will ruin us, and a path where we sacrifice ourselves for the world and the nations, and for our tribe and the people of the free world is a path that will resurrect us.
We earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to become your sons and daughters who know that you are preparing a realm of resurrection that is greater than what we have sacrificed, and who are able to have minds that are brave and of good courage and go directly towards the enemy.
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the True Parents. Amen.
March 29, 1970