Prayer

기도 · 祈禱 · 정성 · 誠 · gido · jeongseong

What is Prayer?

Prayer (기도, gido; 祈禱) is the most direct and intimate act of human communication with God. In the theology of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, however, prayer is something far more profound than a religious practice or a list of petitions.

It is the primary means by which a fallen human being restores the broken relationship of heart between humanity and God, enters into the inner world of the Heavenly Parent, and gradually becomes a person through whom God can act in the world.

What distinguishes Unification prayer most sharply from conventional religious prayer is its direction. Where most prayer is oriented toward what the human being needs from God — protection, blessing, healing, guidance — Rev. Moon's prayer life and teaching orient it almost entirely in the opposite direction: toward what God needs from the human being.

The most consistent theme across his six decades of recorded prayers is God's sorrow — the grief of a Parent who created humanity out of love and lost His children through the Fall, and who has been waiting in loneliness and anguish ever since. To pray, in this understanding, is first and foremost to comfort God rather than to ask God for comfort.

We know that the greatest sorrows of humankind are: not having been able to form a relationship with your love, having lost our original consciences which could communicate with your heart, and not being able to harmonize our minds and bodies which would enable us to harmonize our consciences and your heart.

— Please Let Us Communicate With Your Heart, Sun Myung Moon (06/14/1959)

This prayer from 1959 establishes the entire architecture of Unification prayer: the Fall as the rupture of heart-communication with God; prayer as the active effort to restore that communication; and the goal not as personal blessing but as the recovery of the original relationship in which the human conscience and God's heart can move together as one.

Section I — Etymology and Terminology

기도 (gido, 祈禱) is the standard Korean term for prayer. The Hanja break down as 祈 (gi, to pray, to beseech, to invoke) and 禱 (do, to pray earnestly, to supplicate). Together they communicate the act of reaching upward with earnest longing — not a casual request but a genuine straining of the whole person toward God.

정성 (jeongseong, 誠) is the equally important parallel concept that runs through all of Rev. Moon's teaching on prayer. The single character 誠 combines 言 (word/speech) and 成 (to accomplish, to complete): it literally means “to bring words to completion through action.” In practice, jeongseong means sincere devotion—the offering of one's absolute best effort, utmost sincerity, and wholehearted investment to God. It is not simply prayer but everything that makes prayer real: the pre-dawn rising, the fasting, the tears, the physical investment that proves the words are not merely spoken but embodied.

Rev. Moon consistently taught that among all Chinese characters, if he had to choose one single word that captured the essence of his life and teaching, it was 성 (seong, 誠)—sincerity/devotion. He said, “Jeongseong is lowering heaven's anchor rope into a place where there was no anchor.

You hook it one link at a time until the rope hangs down. When you invest in Jeongseong, the anchor drops like this. And when the rope hangs down, the gate of prayer opens.” (169-223, 10/31/1987)

기원 (giwon, 祈願) means a prayer of petition or aspiration—specifically a prayer for a wished-for outcome. It is used for the more specific act of asking God for something. 기도생활 (gido saenghwal) means “life of prayer”—the habitual, sustained practice of daily prayer that constitutes the devotional backbone of a Blessed Family's routine.

Section II — The Theology of Prayer: Comforting God

The most theologically distinctive dimension of Unification prayer is its orientation toward God's own inner condition. This emerges directly from the movement's understanding of God as a Parent who suffers.

Rev. Moon taught that after the Fall of Adam and Eve, God was not simply displeased or just—He was broken-hearted. He had created humanity out of the deepest love, investing Himself totally in the hope of a relationship of love with His children.

When Adam and Eve fell and aligned themselves with Satan's lineage, God lost the very objects of His love. He could not simply punish them and move on; as a Parent, He could not cease to love them.

The entire history of providence is therefore the history of a suffering God who has been trying to restore what He lost, enduring rejection and failure generation after generation.

We know the fact that because of the fall of the original Adam and Eve, who were to attend you, until now history has been a course of sorrow. We know that you have gone through a historical course of toil, not distinguishing between times or ages to find humankind again, because you have the responsibility of the creator who cannot forget humankind who has fallen to such a point, even if you want to.

— Oh, Sorrowful Father, Please Let Us Comfort You, Sun Myung Moon (04/19/1959)

Given this understanding of God, authentic prayer is not about asking God for things. It is about entering God's inner world—feeling what He feels, taking personal responsibility for the grief that humanity has caused Him, and offering oneself as the means by which God's loneliness can finally be resolved. True prayer, in this sense, is an act of filial love offered upward to a sorrowful Parent.

This is why the Prayer Collection on tplegacy.net, spanning over six decades of Rev. Moon's prayer life, is organized around themes like “Prayers for the Heart,” “Prayer about Filial Piety,” and “Prayers for Restoration.” The titles of individual prayers — “Please Let Us Feel Your Sorrow In Place Of You, Father” (02/15/1959), “Please Let Us Be Moved By The Heart Of Heaven And Shed Tears” (02/12/1961), “Oh Father, Who Has Walked Through This Course Of History Of Lamentations” (05/03/1964) — reveal a prayer life that is fundamentally oriented not toward personal blessing but toward entering into God's own grief and offering consolation.

Section III — Prayer and Jeongseong: The Anchor Rope

Rev. Moon consistently linked prayer with jeongseong — emphasizing that prayer without sincere, embodied devotion is empty, while jeongseong without prayer is unanchored. The two form a single practice.

He described jeongseong as lowering heaven's anchor rope into the earth — each act of sincere devotion (early morning rising, fasting, prayer vigils, tears, service) hooks one more link of the rope until the connection between heaven and earth becomes firm. When that rope is lowered enough, the gate of prayer opens and communication with God flows freely.

Rev. Moon's own prayer life was legendary in its intensity. From his youth in North Korea through decades of global ministry, he maintained early morning prayer — typically rising around 3:30 a.m. He prayed for hours alone in the mountains, in forests, and even in prison camps. He described praying so intensely that his knees became deformed—but as he said, by the time his knees bore those marks, he had entered a state of closeness with God where prayer no longer required such effort: “Now God is near, so direct communication happens immediately.” (250-318, 10/15/1993)

He taught that prayer is a battle—the greatest of all battles. “When I pray, I grab hold of the top of this world and try to turn this planet. Within five minutes, I am drenched in sweat. Prayer is the supreme battle. Jesus prayed until he sweated blood before the cross—that was a battle.” (066-213, 05/07/1973)

He also taught that prayer should never be centered on oneself: “I have prayed three things throughout my life. First, I prayed for faith—faith stronger than anyone in the world. Second, I prayed for wisdom like Solomon's. Third, I prayed for love that could transcend every race and nation and draw all people.” (077-063, 03/30/1975)

Jeongseong is lowering heaven's anchor rope into a place where there was no anchor. You hook it one link at a time until the rope hangs down. When you invest jeongseong, the anchor drops. And when the rope hangs down, the gate of prayer opens, and the more you pray the wider it becomes — from an anchor rope it becomes a ladder, and from a ladder it becomes a mountain reaching up to heaven.

— Cheon Seong Gyeong, Sun Myung Moon (169-223, 10/31/1987)

Section IV — Early Morning Prayer and the Dawn Tradition

One of the most concrete expressions of prayer in Unification culture is the practice of early morning prayer — rising before dawn to spend time in devotional communion with God before beginning the day's work. This tradition is directly rooted in Rev. Moon's own lifelong practice.

He rose regularly around 3:30 a.m. — and taught that the early morning hours, when the visual system passes from sleep to wakefulness, are spiritually unique: the mind's gate is briefly open in a way that allows God and the spirit world to communicate most directly. “At dawn, when the eye's nerve is awakening from rest, there is a threshold moment — God can show you things then. You must be present for it.” (070-181, 02/09/1974)

This teaching gave rise to the movement-wide practice of early morning Hoon Dok Hae — combining the reading of True Parents' words with early morning prayer into a single devotional practice. Prayer prepares the heart to receive the Word; the Word orients the prayer. Together, they constitute the foundation of a spiritually alive family life.

Rev. Moon taught that a leader who does not pray for those in his care is failing in his most basic responsibility. He described praying individually for each of his 400 members in the early days — sensing their spiritual state in the act of prayer and interceding specifically for each one.

“When I prayed for them, God would show me — a bowed head, a troubled face, a joyful countenance. Prayer is not just words; when it is deep, God reveals.” (070-181, 02/09/1974)

Section V — Biblical Foundation for Prayer

Unification prayer is deeply rooted in the biblical tradition of prayer, which Rev. Moon drew upon extensively. The following biblical passages directly inform the Unification understanding:

Matthew “6:6—“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

This verse grounds the priority of inner sincerity over public performance — the heart turned toward God in privacy rather than religious display.

Matthew 7:7-8 — “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Rev. Moon cited this as the biblical basis for absolute faith in prayer:

“Pray with the conviction that it will be fulfilled. Do not doubt after praying. Believe and it will be done — in ten years, a hundred years, it can only go upward.” (066-213)

Matthew 26:36-44 — Jesus in Gethsemane praying “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” — and praying so intensely that Luke records he sweat drops like blood (Luke 22:44).

Rev. Moon consistently returned to Gethsemane as the supreme model of prayer-as-battle: total self-giving in the face of the ultimate test, prayer that does not retreat from suffering but submits to God's will through it.

Luke 18:1-8 — The parable of the persistent widow who keeps coming before the judge: “Will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?” Rev. Moon taught the centrality of unceasing prayer — not as religious performance but as the ongoing conversation of a child who never stops longing for the Parent.

Romans 8:26-27 — “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

This verse resonates with the Unification understanding of the deepest prayer as beyond words — the groaning of the spirit that communicates what language cannot.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 — “Pray without ceasing.”

Rev. Moon held this as a literal standard:

“My life is entirely a life of prayer. Whether I am eating, breathing, or walking — it is all prayer. And it is not for myself. It is for humanity and for God.” (207-349, 11/11/1990)

Philippians 4:6-7 — “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The peace that follows prayer is, in Unification teaching, the sign of alignment between the human heart and God's heart — the state in which one's will and God's will have become one.

Section VI — The Form and Structure of Unification Prayer

Unification prayers follow a distinctive structure rooted in Korean Christian tradition and deepened by Rev. Moon's own devotional practice.

Opening

Prayers begin with an address to God: most commonly “Our Heavenly Father” (하늘 아버지, Haneul Abeoji) or “Father” (Abeoji). The address is personal and intimate — the language of a child to a parent, not of a subject to a king. This directness is itself theologically significant: it assumes the parent-child relationship that the Fall severed and which prayer is meant to restore.

Content

Unification prayers characteristically include recognition of God's sorrow and suffering before any personal petitions — acknowledging what God has endured, expressing empathy with His grief, and promising to work on His behalf.

Only after this orientation toward God's heart does the prayer turn toward the specific needs and hopes of the person or community praying. Even then, those needs are almost always framed in terms of the providence rather than personal comfort.

Closing

Prayers close with the phrase “We have humbly prayed in the name of the Lord” (주님의 이름으로 간절히 기도드렸습니다)—or, in later years, “in the name of the True Parents” (참부모님의 이름으로). This closing formula reflects the theological conviction that fallen human beings approach God through the mediation of the Messiah's victorious foundation.

Please let our mind and body become one, and everything that is ours become yours. We earnestly hope and desire that you will work, Father, so that we will be able to place everything we have before you and, as people you can be proud of, open wide our arms of love with broad generous hearts which can embrace all of creation.

— Please Let Us Communicate With Your Heart, Sun Myung Moon (06/14/1959)

Section VII — Providential Context across the Three Ages

Old Testament Age

In the age of the Law, prayer was mediated through the temple cult, the priesthood, and the sacrificial system.

The psalms of David represent the most intimate personal prayer available within this framework—prayers of lament (Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), of trust (Psalm 23), of praise (Psalm 150), and of intercession.

Rev. Moon deeply honored the Psalms as the closest the Old Testament comes to the heart-communication that God longed for from His children. In the Unification reading, the prophets who interceded on behalf of the people — Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah — were the precursors of the prayer life that reaches into God's own heart rather than merely presenting human needs.

New Testament Age

Jesus revolutionized prayer by teaching his disciples to address God as “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9)—Abba, the Aramaic word for “daddy.”

This single word opened the door to the parent-child relationship that the Old Testament Age had only approached. Jesus' own prayer life modeled total transparency before God: the Gethsemane prayer shows the full anguish of a human being facing death, offered to God without concealment.

His intercessory prayer in John 17 — “that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you” — represents the fullest expression of prayer as union of heart between God and humanity.

Completed Testament Age

In the Completed Testament Age, prayer reaches its fullest expression because the True Parents have restored the direct lineage connection between God and humanity.

Prayer in this age is not mediated by priests or sacraments but offered by each family directly to the Heavenly Parent, in the name of the True Parents, from the position of true children restored to God's lineage through the Blessing Ceremony.

The daily practice of early morning prayer combined with Hoon Dok Hae — the Word and the conversation of the heart — is the devotional expression of the parent-child relationship now restored.

Section VIII — Comparative Religious Perspectives

Christianity

The Christian tradition of prayer is extraordinarily rich and spans mystical, liturgical, contemplative, and intercessory forms.

The hesychast tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy (the Jesus Prayer — “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” — repeated incessantly until it beats with the heartbeat) approaches the Unification ideal of prayer-as-continuous-orientation of the whole person.

The mystical tradition of the West — Teresa of Ávila's Interior Castle, John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul — describes prayer as a progressive deepening of union between the soul and God, culminating in what Teresa called “spiritual marriage”: an interior state of complete oneness with God's will. This resonates with the Unification vision of prayer as the restoration of heart-communication with God.

Judaism

The Jewish prayer tradition is among the world's most developed. The three-times-daily Amidah (Standing Prayer) and the weekly Shabbat liturgy represent a sustained practice of communal orientation toward God. The Psalms — used in Jewish prayer from the Second Temple period onward — form the most deeply personal prayer literature in Scripture.

The tradition of hitbonenut (contemplative meditation) in Hasidic Judaism — focusing on the divine presence within all things and cultivating bitul (self-nullification before God) — parallels the Unification emphasis on entering God's inner world rather than pressing one's own needs.

Islam

The five daily prayers (salat) that structure the Muslim day represent the most systematic institutionalization of the “pray without ceasing” ideal in any world religion.

The prayer rug, the direction of qibla (Mecca), the ritual washing (wudu), and the prescribed postures of standing, bowing, and prostration all express complete submission (islam) of the whole body to God. Alongside formal salat, Islamic tradition honors du'a — personal, informal supplication — as the direct conversation of the soul with God.

The Sufi tradition deepens this toward a mystical dimension: dhikr (remembrance of God), practiced as continuous repetition of divine names, aims at the same unceasing orientation that Rev. Moon lived.

The Quranic affirmation that “verily with the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest” (13:28) resonates with the Unification experience of prayer as the alignment of the human heart with God's.

Buddhism

Buddhism occupies a distinctive position in relation to prayer because classical Buddhism does not address a personal God. However, Mahayana Buddhism's bodhisattva tradition — particularly in Pure Land Buddhism — includes devoted prayer to Amitabha Buddha for rebirth in the Pure Land. The practice of nembutsu (continuous recitation of the Buddha's name) parallels the Hesychast Jesus Prayer in its aim of continuous, embodied orientation toward the transcendent. Zen Buddhism's emphasis on zazen (seated meditation) orients the practitioner toward the present moment in a way that is structurally parallel to the Unification understanding of prayer as full presence before God without distraction or concealment.

Confucianism and Korean spiritual culture

The Korean tradition of jeongseong — sincere devotion expressed through pre-dawn prayer vigils, fasting, and mountain prayer — has deep roots in shamanist and Buddhist practice predating Christianity's arrival in Korea.

The Korean musok (shamanic) tradition of the mudang (shaman) who prays intensely on behalf of the community resonates structurally with the Unification understanding of prayer as intercession for the whole. Rev. Moon explicitly honored this native Korean spiritual depth as part of God's preparation of the Korean people to receive the returning Lord — a people whose spiritual sensitivity had been cultivated through millennia of intense devotional practice.

Section IX — Practical Dimension for Blessed Families

For a Blessed Family, prayer is not an optional add-on to family life — it is its spiritual foundation. Rev. Moon consistently taught five dimensions of prayer in the daily life of a faithful family:

Early morning prayer before Hoon Dok Hae

The day begins by orienting the whole self toward God before speaking, eating, or working. Even fifteen minutes of genuine early morning prayer before reading transforms the quality of the entire day's devotion.

Prayer before eating

Meals are an expression of gratitude to God, the creation, and all those whose labor produced the food. A brief prayer before eating reconnects each moment of physical sustenance to its ultimate source.

Intercessory prayer for family members

Rev. Moon taught that when you pray for those in your household, God shows you their spiritual state. Praying for your spouse, children, and parents by name — bringing their needs to God with genuine jeongseong — is an act of love that operates on both the physical and spiritual plane.

Prayer for the mission

As Tribal Messiahs, Blessed Families carry a specific providential responsibility. Prayer for the people in your community, your neighborhood, and your tribal sphere is an act of taking God's burden onto your own shoulders.

Prayer as a whole-life orientation

The highest expression of prayer in Unification teaching is the state where “even without formal prayer, your whole life is prayer” — the state Rev. Moon described in himself, where every breath, every step, every action is done in awareness of God and in offering to God.

This is the goal: not a scheduled daily prayer routine, but a life so fully oriented toward God that prayer is no longer a separate practice but the texture of every moment.

Section X — Academic Note

In New Religious Movements scholarship, the prayer life of the Unification movement has been examined from several angles.

Eileen Barker (The Making of a Moonie, 1984) noted that the intensity of prayer practice — particularly pre-dawn prayer, fasting, and tearful intercession — functioned as both a devotional and a communal bonding practice in the early movement. She observed that members' descriptions of their prayer experiences often included vivid spiritual encounters that reinforced commitment to the movement and shaped their understanding of God's presence.

Lorne Dawson has analyzed the distinctive Unification theology of prayer — particularly its orientation toward comforting God rather than petitioning God — as an example of how new religious movements can develop theologically sophisticated positions that depart substantially from mainstream tradition while maintaining deep engagement with scriptural sources.

Gordon Melton has noted the extraordinary preservation of Rev. Moon's personal prayers as a theological resource — over 600 recorded prayers spanning six decades on tplegacy.net and related resources — as a unique contribution to devotional literature that merits serious scholarly attention.

The question most frequently raised by outside observers concerns the mediated structure of Unification prayer: prayers are offered “in the name of the True Parents” rather than directly in the name of Jesus or simply to the Father.

Unification theologians respond that this reflects the theological conviction that the True Parents have restored the direct lineage connection between God and humanity, establishing a new basis for prayer in the Completed Testament Age.

Just as New Testament prayer shifted from Temple-mediated sacrifice to prayer “in the name of Jesus,” prayer in the Completed Testament Age shifts to acknowledgment of the True Parents' victorious foundation.

Key Texts on tplegacy.net

• Prayers by Rev. Sun Myung Moon — Full Collection — primary source
• Prayers for the Heart — 32 prayers on God's inner world
• Please Let Us Communicate With Your Heart — key prayer (06/14/1959)
• Oh, Sorrowful Father, Please Let Us Comfort You — key prayer (04/19/1959)
• Prayers for Life of Faith and Training — devotional practice prayers
• Prayers for Devotion — Jeongseong Collection
• Cheon Seong Gyeong — primary teachings on prayer and jeongseong
• Cham Bumo Gyeong — True Parents' life of prayer