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The standards, and conditions
True Parents said that one should participate in the marriage Blessing ceremony only after working long and difficult to become eligible. Blessing candidates should be admired by all people both in the heavenly world and in the earthly world.
Additionally, they must fulfill certain basic requirements, such as maintaining purity, attending Divine Principle workshops, witnessing, fasting, and offering devotions. True Parents have also said that a couple should commit to one another only after obtaining parental consent.
1. You who are preparing for the marriage Blessing need to critically reflect on your life. Many of you have your viewpoint about it. You may think, “It is customary in the church to receive the marriage Blessing.
I have fulfilled all the necessary conditions, and it has been a few years since I joined, so I ought to be qualified to participate.” But you should not think that way. Instead, remember that God has been looking for 6,000 years for sons and daughters who can receive His Blessing. On the Blessing day, God can recover these lost sons and daughters.
Through them, the meeting point will be prepared where God's love can be connected. Thereby, the horizontal foundation is made on which God can expand His Will. How many of you are aware, in your hearts, of God's deep yearning to welcome the day of the marriage Blessing? (030-172, 1970/03/22)
2. We know that Satan invaded Adam and Eve. When Satan dominates God's sons and daughters and takes them away, God is robbed of His dignity. Thus, to give His Blessing, God must find a couple who can surpass the standard Adam and Eve achieved before Satan's invasion.
Therefore, you cannot focus on your rationale as to why you should receive the marriage Blessing. The marriage Blessing should begin from a place of God's choosing. This is the attitude fallen people should have.
If you do not realize this, you will not become mature sons and daughters. If you make a mistake in this area, your descendants, and even ancestors will face Satan's accusation. (030-173, 1970/03/22)
3. After you join the Unification Church, you are not allowed to date. The Human Fall involved a love relationship between a man and a woman that excluded God. Separating from God, they kept their love exclusively between themselves.
Nowadays, people assert that since they live in a free society, they can get married on their own, but this is wrong. If Adam and Eve had not fallen in the Garden of Eden, they would have been married in God's presence. God would have been the officiator.
When Adam and Eve were young, they were immature, relating only as brother and sister. But as they grew older and became mature, it would have been obvious that they were growing physically, and they would have realized that they were meant to have a conjugal relationship.
When the right time came, God naturally would have brought them together in marriage. Their wedding was to have been held in God's presence. The owner of love is not Adam or Eve. The owner of love is not you. It is God.
(042-043, 1971/02/19)
4. Love is one. There is only one husband and one wife in a love relationship. If you have dated and had illicit love relationships before getting married, you should repent. As long as you continue such behavior, you cannot enter the realm of God's love.
Originally, your first experience of love should be with God. You must separate so completely from your past love relationships that you cannot even remember the names of your past lovers. Even in your dreams, area your experience must be such that even though it seemed so real back then, now you cannot even remember who it was.
Otherwise, you are not ready to receive the marriage Blessing. Do you realize deeply that you should love God more than you ever loved anyone in the past?
Love the Will to the point that your love for True Parents comes spontaneously from your heart. It is the Principle that you should love God and True Parents first.
You cannot maintain the concept of love you had in the secular world.
(091-178, 1977/02/06)
5. There are many things you have to get rid of. After you join the Unification Church, you should not think, “I know exactly who I want to marry.” People who think this way are still on the leash of Satan's love.
You must get rid of that mentality. Just as Adam and Eve, as one man and one woman, were growing up pure, with only platonic love, you should focus on loving God as your Parent, and receive True Parents' love.
Once you achieve such a position, the unity of the spiritual world and the physical world is possible. This is the Principle. This is how the Principle works.
(091-178, 1977/02/06)
6. In the marriage Blessing, it is heaven and your parents who decide your partner. In other words, Adam's Father, God, should decide who your partner will be. In that sense, the tradition of marriage as practiced in Korea is a method that is very close to heavenly law.
In Korean tradition, you cannot get married without your parents' permission. This is absolute. Therefore, if there is someone you come to like, you have to report it to your parents right away. Before saying that you like some person, you must get approval from your parents. At that point, with their permission, you are allowed to date that person.
If you date someone and report everything, it is not a sin. However, dating someone without reporting is not acceptable. (030-188, 1970/03/22)
7. The most precious Blessing is when a pure woman and pure man get married within the will of heaven.
That makes God happy. Such people have the greatest fortune in the whole universe. Such people have a foundation to be successful at anything in the whole world. On the other hand, those who could not remain pure will be filled with such regret that their whole being is in turmoil, and they feel the need to repent to such a degree that all heaven and earth would be turned upside down.
They must purify their minds and bodies and say to God, “Father, I am consumed with shame, what shall I do?” Then God will say, “Yes, I know your heart.
I will forgive you. I am happy that you are striving to transcend that painful state.” You should participate in the marriage Blessing only at the point at which you have earned the sympathy of God, who knows everything, and whose forgiveness endures within you. (157-344, 1967/10/16)
8. Usually, ideal things are to be found not in the here and now, but in the future. What can we call an ideal marriage partner? A marriage is not ideal simply because the partners like each other. You and your partner are ideal for each other based on your ability to give birth to outstanding descendants.
This ideal can be realized when two very different people are gathered. From heaven's perspective, what kind of person would be the most ideal partner?
The best result is produced when two people who are so extremely different that they hate each other, eventually come to like one another. If you are willing to take such a difficult path for God and His Will, blessings will come to you.
This is the complete reverse of the secular view of marriage. If you are grateful to receive a person who is your opposite, and you say you will love this person completely, with God's love, regardless of what kind of man or woman he or she may be, God will be happy to let you marry such a person.
I have blessed many members this way. If they can live in unity, their children will be great masterpieces. If one generation is difficult, the following generation is blessed.
You should think that your ideal partner is to be found not in heaven but in the dungeon of hell. You have to look at your bride or bridegroom in this way. (069-328, 1974/01/03)
9. The marriage Blessing is not for the sake of just the people standing there together in the ceremony.
Each of these men and women should have such a standard that they are qualified and capable of establishing, without fail, a new family that represents their clan, people, nation, and world.
The family of Mr. Kim, for example, does not exist for the sake of the Kim family but represents his people nation, and even the world. Without such a family, the marriage Blessing cannot be realized.
Adam and Eve, the ancestors of all human beings, were not just two individuals; they were the origin of history. Their deeds were not to have ended just with them. Through them, a new family, new clan, new people, and new nation were to have come into being.
The Marriage Blessing is the place where such a worldwide foundation could be determined. (030-165, 1970/03/22)
10. To receive the Unification Church marriage Blessing, you need to fulfill several conditions.
First, you need to make a condition of restoring all things of the creation, the material world. Next, you have to make a condition to restore yourself by separating from Satan, and third, you need to restore three spiritual children. You must have at least three spiritual children.
Why? This is due to the Fall. To restore fallen humankind, you need to go through the re-creation process following the Principle of Creation. If you do not fulfill all of this in seven years, you will not be able to participate in the marriage Blessing.
Because of the Fall, you have to be re-created and return to God's side. To be re-created, you have to stand in the place of God as a creator. To re-create humankind, you need to bring material things to God's side. Through those material things, you can go through the process of re-creating yourself.
Therefore, you must carry out economic activities for more than three years. You need to go into the world to restore these material things that will re-create you. While making this foundation, you sacrifice your body.
On that foundation, you have to win a battle over Satan by witnessing for three and a half years. No matter how hard Satan may persecute you, you should not fail. You should restore yourself so that you can stand in front of God eternally.
At the same time, you have to find three sons or daughters as your spiritual children. This is because you need to establish a connection to receive the cooperation of the spirit world.
Without fulfilling this condition, you cannot become a perfect, unfallen, original couple, and without becoming a perfect original couple, you cannot enter heaven. (162-059, 1987/03/27)
11. Those who have fasted know that it is not easy. But to become a full-fledged church member, you have to do a seven-day fast in prayer. Ordinary people think that if they do not eat for seven or eight days, they will die.
Why do we need to do this kind of thing? It is to have confidence and confirm that we are risking our lives for God and humanity. Furthermore, we fast with a strong conviction that it helps separate us from Satan.
As we abstain from food, we eliminate our fear of hunger. Fasting for seven days is a great tradition that gives us the conviction to move forward toward one global goal. (073-010, 1974/07/21)
The matching of couples
True Parents first gave the marriage Blessing on April 16, 1960, when they blessed three couples.
As they continued to match and bless more couples, they always considered not only the individuals and their families but also the descendants who would be born from the couples they matched.
True Parents matched couples transcending nationalities, races, and religions, and sometimes even matched couples by the at.
12. I have matched many couples, and this is possible because I am sensitive to the spirit world. When I focus on one candidate, my hand spontaneously moves toward their future spouse. It is like doing a puzzle. The question is, how do I know? As I walk among the candidates, my feet will come to a halt.
Furthermore, my eyes will turn in a certain direction. I have a certain spiritual ability to do this as if I have some special equipment. When I go to the mountains to train and discipline my mind, I become aware of a triangle of desires: Satan's, God's, and my own.
When Icano unites my mind and attains a state of perfect self-denial, my hands and feet will start to move in a certain direction. That spiritual ability that I have is one of the reasons I could survive until now.
(300-088, 1999/03/01)
13. I know how to read people very well, which is why I can choose people's future spouses. From the time I was eight years old, I was the one in my village who could do this. Adults would show me photographs of their child and a potential spouse. If I saw a shadow over them, it meant they were not a good match. I would know immediately when there was a gap between the two.
Because of this, I became famous in the village. People came to me with the photos of two persons, and if I laid the photos down next to each other, it meant they were a good match.
But if I just tossed them away, it was not a good match. If they got married anyway, their marriage usually did not work out. It is the same today.
There are many blessed families around the world whom I have matched. I have matched couples from among hundreds gathered in one room. Among those people, some had already seen their ideal spouse spiritually.
The spirit world told them who their partner would be. Through my spiritual sensitivity, I was able to find that very person. (300-323, 1999/04/15)
14. I have matched many people. Taking responsibility for other people's lives is a serious matter. When I look at people, I can identify what talent they have and what type of person they are. “That woman is fated to be a widow.” “That man is fated to die young.” I even know this sort of thing.
When I am doing this, I am physically on earth, but I switch into spiritual high alert and extend my antennae. I enter a spiritual state in which I can see people's ancestry from a high vantage point.
When I am in this state of mind, there are no mistakes in the choices I make. However, the matching candidates do not always listen to me. Once I had to match a young man 13 times.
Why should I help him get married if he does not like the women I suggest? The point is that I do everything I can. It is because it is better for him if I match him than if he does it on his own.
For the sake of giving the marriage Blessing now that I am here on earth, I have been offering complete devotion and have established all the necessary conditions. (157-211, 1967/04/02)
15. Because I have guided so many people, when I look at somebody I know immediately what kind of person he or she is. I can know what type of child will be born to a man with a certain kind of face paired with a woman with another kind of face. When I am searching for a man's partner, the face of a woman that complements that man will simply emerge.
When I match them by photograph, my hand just moves to a photograph as if on its own. Even if I do not see a person visually, as I am walking around I will come to a halt and my hand will go to the right photo.
If after such a match, a couple casually breaks the tie that was made this way, something terrible will happen. (331-233, 2000/09/03)
16. When I am matching people, I gather a few thousand people in one place. If I tell them, “Jot down the names of five people you would like,” everyone writes down the same ten percent of the candidates.
There was one person in whom 100 people were interested. It is impossible for a matching process to work based on that. That is why you have to trust my guidance.
The wonderful thing is that some people receive in a dream who their spouse will be. If they have had such a dream, they wait for the one they have seen with wholehearted anticipation. What if I were to make a mistake? Then what the Unification Church has been teaching will be disproven.
How can I choose the person they saw in their dream? There is not a single person in the whole country who could make that match. My hand knows and my feet know. The person I point to matches exactly with what the spirit world showed them. (390-098, 2002/08/05)
17. If a man is warm, then the woman should be cold, and if the woman is warm, then the man should be cold. Partners should be matched this way. When I look at a person, I know immediately if that person is warm or cold.
I bring them together so they can harmonize. This cannot be done by just anyone. I heard that one monk said it would be hard for him to match even one couple like that in his whole lifetime, and he wondered what ability enables me to do it over and over. It is because I see hundreds of thousands of couples. All the people I married are doing well.
There are various people. If I match couples who are at the midpoint between a rising and a descending fortune, respectively, those couples live well in harmony.
Since I brought people together like this, if the children of those blessed families live with loyalty toward heaven's will, greater than that of their mother and father, they likely will live even better lives than their parents.
When I observe a family, I know if that family offers devotion to God's Will. I know it by seeing both the mother and father and also their sons and daughters. (336-051, 2000/10/08)
18. When I look at people, I can see some have a destiny that is falling and others have one that is rising.
You can indeed perish by marrying the wrong person. If both the man and woman have a destiny moving upward, they will fly away. On the other hand, if two people have a falling destiny, they will die young, and their sons and daughters also will not live long.
Destinies need to be adjusted. When I choose your partner, I match one who has high standards with another who has low standards. Only then can a balance be achieved. If both of them are trying to take the upper position, everything will fade away. That is why marriage and the path of love can be a fearful thing.
Depending on how your destiny is adjusted, the course of your life can be dented, can become oval, can disappear by becoming flat, or can become round. It must be round to sustain a long life. (2009/11/18)
19. When Unification Church members pray, the spirit world answers saying, “Your ideal spouse is this type of person.” It will reveal to a white person who lives at the North Pole a person from a distant tropical island, saying, “Your ideal spouse is someone from the black race.”
The answer the spirit world gives you in prayer will follow that pattern. When the white person goes to the matching location, he
looks around thinking, “There are only a few black sisters here. Where is she?” But then I found her and matched him to a black sister who was sitting in the corner at the back. The white brother may sit among other white brothers thinking, “There are no black sisters here.
What the spirit world told me about my spouse was a mistake.” At that very moment, I found the sister and then matched the two together.
How can I match people that way in full accordance with what the spirit world showed them? All five colors of humanity are participating there, and yet I will match them without fail. (449-161, 2004/05/13)
20. When I conduct a matching with thousands of people in the room, if there is one person ready to be matched, all the way at the very back, I immediately know it. I can hardly see anyone else except that one person.
If someone received a revelation about that person as their spouse ten years earlier, they will without fail be matched to that person. My hand will move in that direction. My feet will move in that direction.
Those who casually criticize our matching and condemn the Unification Church's marriage Blessing cannot be forgiven easily. During my lifetime, I will indemnify everything to give the marriage Blessing, and those who criticize me will not easily be able to receive salvation.
They must feel indebted before heaven for the marriage Blessing, and to move one step upward, they need to repent sincerely.
Among your ancestors, were there no traitors? Could there not also have been murderers? Through the marriage Blessing, I am asking, “Can you, as the fruits of your tribes, become beings who will shine forever like the bright sun?”
(340-282, 2000/12/27)
21. There is no shorter route to building a world of peace than marriage between enemies, uniting them as one. When half of all Japanese and Koreans marry one another in cross-cultural Blessings, they will change.
If we hold that kind of ceremony twice, things will change completely. So the issue is how we can quickly have enemies receive the marriage Blessing together. A world of peace will come faster if that process is welcome. I am the champion of conducting interracial marriages.
I have set the record. I never act carelessly when it comes to making a match. No matter how hard any of you try to create a match, you will not be able to surpass my standard. Even if neither of you feels good when you meet one another for the first time, as you live together, you will come to like each other.
Marriage is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. How serious do you think I have to be as I take responsibility for this most important event in your life? It is not a joke. I am considering how you can change your destiny in terms of your descendants. (250-033, 1993/10/11)
22. I do not see anyone as an enemy. I never think that I have enemies who should perish. If you have enemies, you cannot build the kingdom of heaven. If you have enemies, you cannot build a strong foundation.
That is why I have given the Blessing to both saints and murderers. Not only that, I have blessed the children of saints and murderers with each other. Since we are moving into this kind of age, Koreans and Japanese have cross-cultural marriages. Japan and Korea have been bitter enemies, but through cross-cultural marriages, it will be possible for Koreans and Japanese to unite. (325-056, 2000/06/29)
23. On what basis do I look for your marriage partner? I choose a person with whom you can have better descendants than you would have with the person you like externally. That is what I mean when I say you should marry for the sake of your descendants.
If I match you with someone you want to marry, but then it turns out that no one in the world wants to marry any of your children, what would you do? Nothing could be more unfortunate than that.
It would mean a lifetime of unhappiness. That would be worse than having a serious physical handicap or lacking in some other way. Marriage is for our descendants. The point is how to match people despite the way they look externally, knowing that their children will inherit only their good qualities.
(028-304, 1970/02/11)
24. You may say you will find your partner on your own, but based on my experience, the one you find will not be very suitable for you. If you look for a spouse based only on qualities that please your eyes, the children you have may not be so good.
If the second-generation members of the Unification Church are not strong and do not become extraordinary people, the nation will not prosper. I think about this very seriously as I look for your partner.
Matching by photograph is truly an incredible thing. Your mothers and fathers will ask, “Could it be true?” Before you marry, you normally first meet the person with just the possibility of marriage in mind. But with us, some start dancing the moment they see their matching partners' photographs.
There were probably people who did not even look at the photograph and yet were happy. The standard of finding one's spouse that way surpasses the world's standard. Satan's world can never do anything like this. Besides True Father, there is nobody who can do this. (183-077, 1988/10/29)
25. If you do not like the matching partner I pick for you, you may limit your investment in the marriage as a consequence. Those who have faith in the matching and work hard for it will receive a heavenly fortune in the end. Originally, you may not blend well.
But nothing ever fits smoothly right after marriage. Each side inevitably has to adjust to the other. Initially, you may even feel you were not given the right partner. You have to be willing to adjust and maintain hope.
If your heart is not in it, you will not be able to invest yourself to the degree necessary. It is like the cap on a new make-up container not fitting well. The same is true of your new husband or wife. It might take three years for you to train yourselves to adjust to each other.
Emulate three generations. Watch what your grandfather and grandmother are doing and watch what your mother and father are doing. You will fit together by emulating three generations. (300-323, 1999/04/15)
26. Your marriage is one of the most important matters in your life. It is your desire as a human being, and God's desire as well, that your beloved partner be better than you. Because I know this as a parent, I want to take good care of you.
When matching couples, I need to tie together two people, one who goes upward and the other who goes downward, so that soon they will reach the same level and become united.
Combining races, such as black with white, is no longer a problem. Skin color is not a problem. In that sense, the marriage Blessing ceremony that I have inaugurated has become the world's tradition.
As time goes by, everyone realizes that True Parents' matching is better than the choice they would make themselves. The sons and daughters of these couples are better than their parents. This tradition has been established. This is why tens of thousands of couples are willing to marry even after only seeing a photograph. (233-034, 1992/07/20)
27. The matching for the 30,000 Couples Marriage Blessing was done by photograph. This is truly a wonderful fact; it is unlike anything in Satan's world. In getting married, those couples stood at the zero point of absolute faith.
Eve fell, so she was unable to receive absolute love, but these people have surpassed the boundaries of their countries and found a path of love that cannot be found in Satan's world.
This means that they stood in the position where they loved me and loved God. (277-132, 1996/04/07)
28. People are saying that my matched couples are ideal unions. I advise you to try living together for three years and then make an assessment. Try having one or two children. After you have one or two children, you will know if I made the right or wrong choice.
I think you will say, “Oh, if it were not for True Father, this son never would have been born. Thank you, Father.” Your marriage is not for your sake but for the sake of your descendants.
You must know that you marry for the sake of your ancestors and your descendants. (118-226, 1982/06/06)
Sun Myung Moon