This speech was delivered by Peter Hyo-yul Kim, vice chairman of the Mission Foundation, representing Hak Ja Han Moon, on September 23, 2013, the 21st day following the Seonghwa of Reverend Sun Myung Moon, at Cheon Jeong Gung, Korea.
My beloved members, upon True Father's ascension, you all pledged in front of Heaven to do your best with deep love and devotion. We remember our hearts as we asked him to please not worry about what is happening in the physical world, and to ascend to the spirit world comfortably.
Hak Ja Han Moon
True Father, who fought against time
All his life, Father did not care about himself, but instead dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the liberation of God and the salvation of humanity. He, therefore, left behind him many remarkable accomplishments.
Father liberated God by exercising the prerogative given only to the True Parents, and he opened wide the way for God to directly govern the earthly world and the spiritual world. With this single-minded heart and will, he lived only for the sake of others, not looking after his own body.
Never wasting a single minute or second of his life, he lived every moment with the feeling that he did not have enough time. Many were the times, therefore, when he missed meals. Father could not even think about taking the rest his physical body desperately needed.
Since he was born with a healthy body, if Father had taken care of himself, he could have lived an even longer life. During the last few years, however, he would say that each day felt like a thousand years; that is how busy he was.
He did not want to go to the hospital at this time, and since he was responsible for everything, I could not help him in any way.
In particular, when he was traveling abroad, he traveled from east to west and back rather than from north to south. He should have avoided long-distance travel if possible; if it was necessary, he could have gone back and forth once every two or three years.
That was the medical opinion. However, in the past year alone, Father traveled to and from the United States eight times.
Sun Myung Moon
Why did he lead such a life?
He had set the date for Foundation Day, but he knew that he would pass into the spirit world before that day.
That is why his lifestyle was one of not wasting even a minute or a second of his life. Knowing this, I wished to stop him with any excuse I could think of.
Sometimes, I told him that I wasn't well enough to travel with him. He would then reply that he would go by himself. In this way, he continued to live a taxing life.
Beloved members, just as the cars we ride in and the equipment we use in factories need to be oiled and maintained to last longer, we also need to try to maintain our youth in any way we can before our bodies age.
Such is the era we are living in, isn't it?
Father, however, lived his life beyond all such cares. He followed a schedule of overexerting himself, speaking for more than ten hours during Hoon Dok Hae sessions, and visiting Geomun Island or Yeosu by helicopter.
Overstraining himself repeatedly in such a way, in the end, he caught a cold. Catching a cold at that age is a most fearful thing. Though he should have gone to the hospital and done something about it right away, some time passed before he went.
The cold worsened and developed into pneumonia. His lungs became weak, and in the end, his condition worsened, and complications set in. Though he did not want it, finally, he had to be admitted to the hospital, by which time he had become fragile.
Sun Myung Moon
I am sorry that I had to let him go without making him more comfortable.
In early August, after all kinds of tests had been carried out over ten days or so, he wanted to leave the hospital for a while. He found it difficult to stay in the hospital, saying that it felt like a prison.
We had no choice but to have him discharged. That was on August 12. After leaving the hospital, during the one day he stayed in Cheon Jeong Gung, Father told his assistants, "I want to eat with Mother today."
I usually sat next to him during meals, but on that day, he said, "I would like to eat sitting face to face with Mother so I can see her face. So, we set the table accordingly.
However, Father stared at my face for a long time instead of eating. I believe he was engraving my face in his heart. I felt tears welling up inside of me, but on the outside I maintained a smiling face and asked him to try this dish or that, saying to him, "This one is excellent, and that is also delicious."
After that experience, I became more serious than ever, and I strongly wanted to make him take a nap. He, however, pressed his staff members to accompany him as he hurriedly visited various parts of Cheon Jeong Gung. August 13 was an extremely sunny day.
Despite the hot sun, and even though he had to be accompanied by an oxygen tank almost as tall as a man, he insisted on looking around the palace. Father did a tour of Cheon Jeong Gung.
He visited the Cheong Shim Middle and High School and the nearby small park, and drove around the Cheong Shim Peace World Center and the Chung Pyung training center. He then came and sat in the sitting room in Cheon Jeong Gung and asked for a digital recorder.
Holding the recorder in his hand, Father thought deeply for about ten minutes and then spoke while recording what he said. As you may know from having heard his recorded voice, Father gave the same message three times on that day – in the sitting room, in the master bedroom, and in Cheong Shim Hospital.
He said, "Everything is done! Everything is done!" He then went on to pray, struggling for breath, "I will return everything to Heaven." He emphasized, "I have brought things to conclusion, completion and perfection," and he took my hand and said, "Mother, thank you! Mother, please take care of things!"
What meaning could be attributed to his uttering such words? Now and then, he said such things as, "The time has come for me to go. I know when I will pass away." I am sure that during this time he was making his final preparations.
What I am relating to you is only a small part of what happened before Father ascended; in truth, I experienced much more with Father during those days. When we had our meals, we usually sat next to each other, and he would be aware of my presence and would hold my hand firmly in his as he ate.
Whenever I think about such things, I am very sorry, and it hurts my heart to think that I let him go without making him more comfortable. When I asked him to rest, he sometimes said, "I want to lay my head in your lap, Mother," and he would take a very short nap.
Of late, he had been doing things he had never done when he was healthy. Father, who had lived his whole life more energetically than anyone else, wished to stay close to me at all times when he became less well, and needed me and depended on me like a child does his mother.
Sun Myung Moon
Repay the love and grace you received from the True Father
Yesterday, I was told that a member had mentioned feeling empty after Father passed away and was missing him so much, and that if she could see my face, she would be strengthened; so, she had communicated a sincere plea for me to come to Cheon Bok Gung.
Why am I unable to go there?
I am still in the middle of the 40 days of preparing meals for True Father, today being the 21st day. Even while working in heaven, Father comes at mealtimes without fail.
We have set the times to offer him meals at 7:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, and 6:00 p.m. While on earth, he had been unable to follow such a schedule, but after passing into the spirit world, he always comes on time. I can feel it.
Every day, I converse with Father. I explained to him about the soybean-paste soup and side-dishes he had enjoyed during his time on earth, and asked him to please help himself to them. Since I am following a tradition to prepare and offer these meals to him three times a day, I have no personal spare time.
During Father's lifetime, I was never able to serve him his meals on time. That is why I must at least devote myself to this task during this time. Dear members, at the moment of Father's ascension, I promised Father that I would work to fulfill all that he had desired to do for humanity until my last day on earth.
That is why I am busy these days. I need to reorganize Korea's present complicated situation, and I intend to establish the tradition of marching forward centering on spirit and truth in our Unification Church.
To nurture our church to become a spontaneous one, I am receiving reports from many of our church officials and leaders, and making new plans. Therefore, I ask you to please wait just a little while longer.
Given that the Lord, at his Second Coming, the Savior, the Messiah, and the True Parent who came to this world after a wait of 6,000 years, has now ascended to the spirit world, do you think 40 days of devotion is enough?
Would 100 days of devotion be enough?
There is no limit to attendance through religious devotion. Henceforth, I hope you will understand that everything that is carried out in Korea from this day onward will be centered on True Mother.
Our first goal is to do our absolute best and fight at the risk of our lives to firmly establish Cheon Il Guk by Foundation Day.
I hope you will not forget that the responsibility to bring this nation and all its citizens to receive the marriage Blessing from True Parents lies with you. Only by working a hundred times or a thousand times harder than before can you repay the love and grace you have received from the True Father.
Dear members, we will now make our Unification Church a living and breathing church, as it was in the early days. We will develop it into a spontaneous, creative, and dynamic church, unrestricted by numbers or systems.
We will make it into a church centered on the Principle and love, which will be like a nest with the warmth of a mother's embrace that will make all of us wish to go there all the time and always remain there.
As in the beginning, we will make it so that the sound of Divine Principle lectures is constantly heard in our churches. I hope all of you will be grateful for the work you do day by day and that you will be blessed.
Please achieve the best results of your life. Foundation Day is not far off now. Once again, I ask all of you to please become such people.
Hak Ja Han Moon