Prayers, A Lifetime Of Conversation With Our Heavenly Father - Sun Myung Moon |
Filial Piety [Part 2 of 4]
Please Let Us Move Only As Yours
Please do not allow us to become people who think that we belong to ourselves. Our minds are not ours, and our lives which are in motion are not ours; and as the desires we are longing for are not ours please do not allow us to relate to heaven with minds that consider things centered on ourselves. Since we began as yours, we earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will allow this to become a time when we are able to move only as yours.
Since we know that our minds must become yours, and our bodies also must become yours, and our ideologies and opinions must become yours, please do not tolerate anything that is not yours. If there are elements of evil which you do not want in our minds and bodies, please eliminate them, and we earnestly hope and desire, oh Father, that you will allow this to become a time which moves as yours alone through your having eliminated all the ideologies and opinions that are not yours.
We know that uncountable satans are stalking our minds and our bodies. If the bitter root of sin, which you cannot tolerate, remains, oh Father, we earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will bring about heavenly acts that will give us the ability to subjugate our minds before you, and that you will appear and bring about heavenly acts of re-creation through the authority of your power.
We know the fact that when heaven moves, the earth cannot help but move, and when the earth faces heaven and requests something, heaven cannot help but accomplish it for the earth. Today are there sons and daughters of heaven who are struggling with sincere minds and true hearts in order to grasp heaven as their own? Is there any person who has lived his or her entire life thinking of all of heaven's situations as his or her own situations, thinking of heaven's work as his or her own work, thinking of the ideas of heaven as his or her own ideas, and struggled while seeking to grasp this, been treated contemptuously while seeking to grasp this and been driven out while seeking to grasp this? If we have not been in that kind of position, please allow us to be able to report truthfully that we are criminals who cannot be tolerated by heaven.
Now we have realized that heaven exists, and we have realized who our heavenly Father is. Since we know that there remains the necessary condition that we must form a certain kind of destined relationship between you and us, Father, today please allow us to form a destined relationship with you, our heavenly Father, through this kind of heart, and to feel your anguish as our anguish, and your deep regret and sorrow as our deep regret and sorrow. Please allow there to appear before this people and please allow there to appear in this land a heavenly march which goes forth to fight a fierce battle against Satan.
We earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to be able to drive out from the earth the enemy satans who have faced heaven and accused it for 6,000 years, in order to resolve your grief and to build as soon as possible the ideal garden you have sought.
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the lord. Amen.
March 15, 1959
Please Let Us Lead The Way In The Resolution Of Historical Grief
You are the father of hosts, you are the Lord of the entire universe, and you were the central figure who had all authority under heaven, but because of the mistake of your son and daughter, you are facing a miserable situation like this. Therefore, please allow us to understand your heart at this time. And we earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will not allow us to become weak like defeated people as we look up at the peak of enmity of the providence which remains.
Oh, Father of compassion! Oh, Father of love! If your promised Will is alive in our hearts, please protect us. We earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will allow us to become loving sons and daughters who build up an altar of heart while kneeling down wailing before you.
When we have come before you, Father, we have been able to experience and feel keenly the lonely heart of Jesus who had determined to go forward not caring about all the difficulties. Now since the time has come to speak proudly about the hope that we, who have gone out with determination, are embracing, please let us stand on the side of heaven and lead the way, and please let us leave behind what heaven wants to leave behind.
We earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will help this true group of people be able to comfort you and fight for you, Father, adding our hearts together.
Since a trend towards the historical turning point has appeared before us today, please let us become a group of people that resolves the grief of history. We earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will allow us to become sons and daughters who are able to feel we are inadequate in relation to the Will you have established, and are able to represent the heart of Moses who sought to build an altar for you and believe in you even in difficult circumstances.
What we are going through cannot even be compared with your worn, your suffering, and your toil. Please allow us to become people who are able to see the circumstances you went through as you walked the course of unending troubles, and we earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to become people who are able to see your majesty as you walked the unending course of suffering.
Please let us be able to go beyond all the unjust accusations we are encountering, all the criticism we are receiving, and all the persecution we are encountering today. Please guide us to be able to go forward for you, Father, without getting bogged down, no matter what kind of position we are in. We earnestly hope that you will enlighten us to know deeply about all these things, and please counsel us through your heart which is concerned for us, and earnestly hoping that you will allow us to become sons and daughters who do not mind all these things.
We have humbly prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
March 29, 1959
Please Command Us Through The Original Heart
Father! Please allow our minds and bodies to be permeated by your heart. Please let us become able to feel that we are being pulled into your heart which is permeating our original minds. In our minds and bodies, please allow hearts to blossom that are moved and can go forth running to you who are joyful, and embrace you.
We have realized that you appear faintly in the midst of dimness and you do not move until we open our hearts. Even though our minds may have become dirty, since our true hearts are still heading only towards you, Father, please come to us through these hearts, and command us through these hearts. Please allow earnest hearts to well up which can call you "My Father" while shedding tears we do not even perceive, having realized that our past lives were disloyal.
We have come to know that heaven does not hesitate to protect anyone, and we have come to understand that heaven does not hesitate to become the friend of those who are seeking heaven, and we have come to know that heaven enjoys appearing as the friend of people who shed tears wailing to heaven, and as the father who will live with us eternally.
Father! We long for your voice which counseled us quietly and we long for a sense of the amazing love with which you embraced us gently. We long for a moment when we can call you "Father" through our minds which are like that, and we want to raise our hands and exclaim and boast that you are our father.
We thought that you were a father who was far, far away, but it was a joyful moment when we found that you are in our hearts. When we said you were far away, you were in our hearts, and when we were confident that you were in our hearts, you were the father who had called to us from afar, but today humanity does not know how to match this heart beat. Please let us repent at this time for ourselves of the past which did not realize that the place where we thought you had abandoned us was the place where you were close to us, and that the place where we thought you were not with us was the place where you were together with us.
We did not know your mind which does not want to leave in places of suffering your sons and daughters whom you want to call "my beloved son" and you want to call "my beloved daughter." We, who don't know your complicated heart, thought that you, who sent us out on the path of toil, were a hardhearted and cruel father, and during that time, there were many times we complained to you and there were many times we felt bitter. Since we did not know about the complicated walls that blocked the way between you and us, Father, please bear with the fact that we have felt bitter, have rejected you, have been coldhearted to you, and have not had faith in you.
We have come to know that this was because of the aspect of the sin committed by our ancestors due to the fall, and this was because saints and sages died leaving behind stains of the blood of enmity in human history.
Today is the level of our minds in a high place? Please burn away those minds by fire. Are we waiting impatiently to put ourselves and our authority forward and to appear in your place? We earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to become sons and daughters who, realizing that you are in a miserable position, are able to call you "Father," and are able to smite our shameful breasts in front of your majesty.
Father! Now as we come to realize that there remain times of suffering which will continue endlessly along the remaining way as well, we cannot help but report our disloyalty of today to you with our heads bowed. It is my desire that you please allow this one being to carry the sorrow of history, and please allow heaven to tread upon and go over all the suffering remaining, having taken this being as a sacrifice.
I long for the moment when you can rest and cast aside all lamentations, Father, and we can have a moment of joy embracing each other when I can call you my father, and you can call me your son. As long as we are living on this earth, no matter how miserable we are, no matter how resolved we are, or how much we sacrifice, please allow us to become your sons and daughters who are able to establish at least sincere hearts of unbending loyalty on this earth and then disappear.
Since we have resolved to go that kind of path, Father, we earnestly hope and desire that you will drive us out and lead us until we don't mind those things. We earnestly request, Father, that this will become a time when we are able to pledge and determine ourselves with new minds and bodies.
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
March 29, 1959
Please Let This Become A Path Of Faith Where We Attend Our Sorrowful Father
Father, you have rejoiced in revealing yourself in silence, and you have not minded revealing yourself in the midst of difficulties. When we realize again that historically it was you, Father, who fought personally on our side with us on the battlefield and who was together with us at the point of despair, and when we think that it was you, Father, who was always with us, and who always fought on our side with us, and who always longed to live together with us, please let us repent for our course of faith of the past in which we rejoiced in rejecting and excluding the earth even while living on the earth.
Our Father whom we joyfully attended as being far above the earth was a father of glory, but we have come to know that our Father who appeared on the earth is miserable, and worn out, and lonely. And furthermore, we learned and came to know that you have come to us and related to us in that way through the course of history.
Now we should not rejoice in and attend our Father who has appeared in glory; rather we earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to stand in a position of glory by being able to rejoice in and attend our father who has been wounded on the earth and has been afflicted with difficulties, and who has struggled to find a true son.
If we seek to attend you from that kind of position, we know that we will first have to go a path of tears, we will have to walk a path of thorns, and we will have to go beyond the path of the suffering of the cross. We know it is only in that way that we can know the fact that you exist. We cannot help but think that this kind of lonely course of faith is remaining for us.
Heaven has warned us that now is the time to wake up from sleep. Heaven warned us that it is the time when we should hold up a bright light in this dark night, but are our minds immersed in darkness? Are our bodies bound by the chains of death? Please lead us to cut and cast these aside in order to be able to run towards heaven, to be able to fight in the place of heaven, and to be able to take responsibility in place of heaven. We know that it will not do unless we become sons and daughters who by doing that can call you "Father" and who long for our father to come; therefore, if there are people who are inadequate to stand before the will, Father, at this time please encourage them.
We earnestly hope and desire that you will let us know that the time and the age are at hand, and not let us become people who are judged, or swept away by the shadow of death, and that you will let us become sons and daughters who know how to run forward towards the garden of freedom seeking your bosom and led by the call of life, even if we have the grief of our bodies being ripped apart and even if we face the grief of death.
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
April 19, 1959
Please Let Us Search For Your Course Of Suffering
We know that the place where you dwell, Father, is the world of infinite patience, and it is a place of infinite toil.
We, who know your heart and will which dealt with all the sins committed until now since our ancestors, cannot help but bow our heads with ashamed hearts before our father who has walked a path of so much endurance and a path of so much toil in order to find a being of the original creation.
We earnestly hope and desire, Father, that you will allow us to be able to broaden our minds at this time and bowing down our bodies, attending you in our minds and holding on to you with our bodies, oh Father, who has struggled in order to hold on to humankind, who has gone forward fighting together on the side of our ancestors, and who has endured together with our ancestors, during the long ages as though they were a day.
We have come to know that among the many people who are living on the earth, while there are many people who avoid the path of toil, there are extremely few people who seek and go forth on the path of toil knowing your situation in order to have your heart in their minds and bodies. When we come to realize that there are very few people who offer loyalty for your sake, who prepare an altar for you, becoming sacrifices for your sake, or who reveal your enduring heart on the earth, we come to realize that you are terribly miserable,
Father! We cannot help but feel that you are a father who toils and worries about humankind, and even while loving humankind, you are lamenting.
Oh, my Father! Now please let the day come soon when you can convey what your situation is like to humankind who are living on the earth. We are earnestly looking forward to your situation which is like that, being able to be sunk deep into the hearts of each and every person.
Father! On this day, on this holy day there are many people who are looking forward to receiving blessings bowing their heads and kneeling down to you, but please let us become people who know that blessings belong to heaven and humankind must take responsibility for the course of toil, suffering and endurance.
If we have joy, please let us return it to you as yours, Father, and if we have hearts of happiness and gratitude, please let us return them to you as yours also, and we earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to become your sons and daughters who take charge of your sorrowful course filled with grief and enmity as though it were our own.
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
May 24, 1959
Please Let Us Be Able To Sing Of Your Liberation
Father: If we recollect your sorrowful historical course, we cannot suppress our fearful minds, and each time we relate to the majesty of our Father who has toiled so hard, we cannot suppress our awe-stricken minds. Now please establish these people as sons and daughters who are able to stop and take over your toil by offering their minds and bodies as sacrifices.
You have eagerly awaited the coming of a day of victory when we can sing of liberation from a position of joy which you are able to enjoy, but it is not you who is to realize that will of liberation; we know the fact that it will not do unless it is done by us, human beings who are so disloyal and struggling in the realm of death.
Please bear with humankind who are in an important position like this, but who are languishing along the course of death without knowing their own value as human beings. Please awaken in us earnest minds which are able to sing praises of your heart of glory by holding up a new standard for the restoration of the original heart in ourselves now. Please let us have original internal characters and original external forms, and please let us appear as true sons and daughters and be able to sing of your liberation, Father. We know that you know the fact that this has been our hope for thousands of years.
Father, we earnestly hope and desire that you will lead those of us who know that there will be a day of victory to a position of the level of victory, and that you will lead us to be able to become sacrifices in front of the great will that you want to give us responsibility for. Father! Please allow us to be living temples binding together our inadequate devotion.
Since we know the fact that you are notifying us that it will not do unless each of us individually becomes a sacrifice for the victory, please eliminate everything which is not proper to you, and Father, please raise up a new authority of re-creation by reaching out with your almighty hand. Father, we earnestly hope and desire that you will have the internal character and you will have the external form of re-creation which is able to eliminate everything which is not yours.
And now, my Father! Please awaken this people which is sleeping, and by taking humankind, who are wandering in dire misery, in your hands, and gathering them together in one place, please lead them into your original garden, into the garden of goodness which is your ideal. No matter what kind of persecution or misfortune humankind must go through, we earnestly hope and desire that you will quickly lead humankind into the midst of the garden you desire.
Father! Since we know that humankind has a responsibility that must be fulfilled in order to do that, oh Father, please command your beloved sons and daughters. If they have the responsibility to have to go out and find the remaining lands of sin and the remaining people, we earnestly hope and desire that you will please raise them up and command them, and please allow them to be commanded and sent to the place that you desire as ardent laborers, as chosen warriors of heaven who are able to build the garden of victory.
We have prayed these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
June 28, 1959
Father! We Are In Deep Awe
Father! We are in deep awe. Having gone this path, we have come to understand that it is a magnificent path to go, and the more that we experience it, the more we know that it is a path of sorrow which cannot be stopped no matter how much we smite our breasts.
Oh Father, who sought us not for just a day, and not for several years, but for the long time of 6,000 years! Please let this be a time of realizing just how insane the position was that we put you in, and just how angry a position we let you stay in, and furthermore just how unfilial a position we were in. Please let us realize that we, who wept and cried over the things of this world before forming this destined relationship, are sinners among sinners.
What is the hope of those of us who have come here? We did not come here to find someone wearing good clothes; we did not come to find someone of authority; and we did not come for the sake of some desire. Since we have come merely longing for your love, longing for your affection, and longing for a destined relationship with you, Father, if you have tears, please allow us to have those tears also, and if you have suffering, please allow us to have that suffering, too.
Please let us realize that it will not do unless we become princes who indemnify and in your place take responsibility for the history of sorrow and suffering, and we must not become princes who wander searching for a history of joy. We know that you are longing for sons and daughters who are victorious in a position like this, and sons and daughters about whom you can boast before heaven and earth.
And furthermore, we have realized that the goal of God's having toiled for 6,000 years was to establish beloved sons and daughters. We earnestly request and desire that you will allow us to become equal to the duty given us and to be able to fulfill the responsibility given us today. We earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to become sons and daughters who are able to become filial sons among filial sons, filial daughters among filial daughters, and loyal subjects among loyal subjects.
Then, we earnestly request that you, the father of history, may become our father; that you, the father of the present age, may become our father; and that you, the father of the future, may become our father; and that you will protect and embrace these people, Father, until the day of joy comes when we sing songs of joy mobilizing the entire universe.
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
October 11, 1959
Please Let Us Become Children Who Do Not Leave Behind Grief
Father! We will go. We will be proud. We will overcome. We will collapse embracing this will.
No matter how many people there are who oppose us, please allow us to become sons and daughters who are able to say, "Who could possibly destroy your and our relationship which is united heartistically or the fact that we are your sons and daughters, and you are our father? We want to be confident of this honor alone. We want to leave behind this honor alone for a thousand years."
Father! We are in awe of the grace you have told us about. We arc ashamed in front of our ancestors who were ignorant but obedient, and we are in awe of the martyrs. And we are in awe of Jesus, your only son who died. Even though we are inadequate and have no qualifications, you have given us such grace that it is difficult for us to be equal to it. Please bear with the fact that we have not been able to shed tears of gratitude.
We have realized that we must become your children while we are living, and we have realized that before we die we must praise your love highly. Therefore, please allow us to be able to die not having left behind any grief, and having attended you, at least one time, Father, as those kinds of sons and daughters.
Please let us realize that this is our hope, and it is your hope, too, Father, and we earnestly hope and desire that you will allow us to realize that this is the way to avenge you and to wipe Satan out of existence.
We earnestly request and desire that you will let us become sons and daughters who go forth and fight while praying even if we collapse enduring, sacrificing, and yielding until the dominion of heaven is established, and even if we face grief which chokes us up for the sake of the day in which this will is realized. Please be with us personally so that we can unite and be more than equal to the responsibility that you have given us in front of the world.
We have prayed in the name of the lord. Amen.
January 17. 1960
Please Let Us Walk The Path Of Loyalty And Filial Piety While Attending You
Father! Please pardon the fact that we have shed endless tears because of our difficulties. When we had difficulties, we often smote our breasts and gnashed our teeth. Please let us realize how unpardonable this behavior was in front of our father.
Father, please let us realize that this kind of act could be expected from a traitor who had forgotten the sorrow of heaven, but it is an unreasonable act even in our dreams for a group that knows the sorrow of heaven. We have realized that being joyful even when in sorrow, and being joyful even when in difficulties, and being grateful even if we die are only fulfilling our responsibility at least a little in front of our father, and they are ways to avoid being ashamed in the presence of our father who comes to us.
Now the problem is the kind of position we are in. Have we ever even once greeted our father who came to us, or fed our father who was hungry, or given a drink to our father who was thirsty, or dressed our father who was in need of clothing, or gone to see our father who was in difficulties, or visited our father who was ill? You have said that those positions are where we can always attend you, Father.
We have realized that we must become sacrifices for the whole, and we have realized that it is an ironclad historical rule that the smaller must be sacrificed for the larger. Furthermore since we have realized that great sacrifices must be made in order to establish the will of the heavenly providence, please let us suppress our own sorrows and be more concerned about your sorrows; let us suppress our own worries and be more concerned about your worries; and let us suppress our own unjust suffering and be more concerned about your unjust suffering. Please let us realize that if we become sons and daughters like that, the heart of heaven comes to be together with us.
We were those who forsook you when we had suffering, who reported to you when we were in sorrow and who appealed to you to take care of it when we went through unjust suffering. We have realized that this is not the duty of filial children or the duty of loyal subjects and faithful women.
We have come to realize that if you are going through unjust suffering, it will not do unless we seek to shoulder that unjust suffering even if we come face to face with a sorrowful position or the position of death, and we have realized that we are the people who must not let you stay in that kind of position if you are in that kind of position, even if we come to stand in a difficult position here on the earth.
Father! Please open the doors of our minds and dwell in us, and please release your grief which has formed during the course of restoration, and please let the joy and glory of attending you with our minds be able to reach and affect this world even to all the created things of heaven and earth. Since we have realized that you are infinitely longing for that day, Father, please let us become people who fight and fight, and weep and weep, going forward for the sake of that day.
We earnestly request that you will allow us to become people who know how to run forward to the altar of glory where we attend you by establishing a standard of heart that says, "I will be loyal to you in that way."
We have humbly prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
May 22, 1960