Today, I would like to share with you the meaning of a new ceremony that all blessed families conduct every 8th day, called the Ahn Shi Il. It began on May 5, 2004, at Yeosu in Korea, which was the day when Father proclaimed the Era or the Day after the Coming of Heaven, which is Ahn Shi Il.
What is Ahn Shi Il?
It has to do with every 8th day; we declare a true Sabbath for God. And our family does our bows before heaven, and we also offer the family pledge in which we, as owners of CIG, pledge to fulfill all the responsibilities as blessed central families.
Father and Mother on that day could live in the realm or the era before the coming of heaven and enter into the realm of heaven as a true family. Because of that, True Parents actually enter the direct dominion and direct realm of God's true love.
Actually, if we had really fulfilled all that was possible in developing true love in ourselves, we also should be able to enter the realm of heaven with True Parents in our hearts at that time.
However, as you know, we are still working on perfecting our love through our True Family providence. Therefore, we cannot enter literally with True Parents. So, how do we enter the realm of heaven? So, there's no gap or separation.
The condition that allows us to enter the realm of heaven is Ahn Shi Il. It's conditional. It means it's a spiritual condition that will enable us to claim the next 8 days.
When we pledge before God that we will fulfill Ahn Shi Il, we pledge through the family pledge to fulfill our responsibilities as blessed central families. Through that special prayer service with our blessed family, we set a condition in which God can protect us for the next 8 days, and we claim those next 8 days.
Additionally, we allow God to invoke the powers of heaven to protect us during that 8-day journey. We really honor God on this special Sabbath. Actually, Father proclaimed that year in 2004 on True Parents Day that every day is now a Sabbath Day. But this 8th day is special in what we call Ahn Shi Il, or attendance and settlement.
What is attendance and settlement?
Firstly, let's talk about settlement. Settlement is really centering on the providence of the Hoon Dok Hae family church. That's why in 2004, True Father also launched the Hoon Dok Hae Family Church. What does it mean? It means that our family becomes the dwelling of God.
Through Ahn Shi Il, we enter the realm of heaven every 8 days. But to ensure that we really stay in the realm of true love and truth, we should establish the tradition of Hoon Dok Hae or reading God's words every morning in our homes.
We should be earnest about establishing this tradition not only with the parents but also with all the children of the family and all the generations. Hoon Dok Hae is the reading and studying of God's word. Therefore, we're now entering the realm of heaven where we're reclaiming the Garden of Eden.
What is the meaning of reclaiming the Garden of Eden?
It means that all the conditions that were lost by Adam and Eve's fall into the providence of history from the last 6000 years were reclaimed by True Parents, fulfilling Adam's role and also the 2nd Adam's role and fulfilling all the conditions that were lost by the failures of the 1st and 2nd Israel.
Now a new Israel has been created, and through True Parents' condition, the realm of the Garden of Eden is open again.
True Parents enter first. Then, through the Ahn Shi Il, we are also now entering the realm of true love.
What is the meaning of settlement?
How do we settle our home? First, again, reading and studying God's word. We should be earnest. If we miss our morning study period, we should study at night. We should study very deeply and read aloud God's word.
The Bible says that faith comes from hearing and hearing the word of God. That's why we must read God's word aloud. It not only resonates with our own original mind and strengthens our internal being, but also resonates with the spiritual world.
As we read the messages from heaven, we are also communicating with the spirit world. Also, settlement has to do with bringing the blessing to our tribe. So Father made it clear that the purpose of the Hoondok Dok Family church is multiplication.
And how do we multiply?
We are to multiply through blessing and engrafting all the people that we know into the tree of life or the true olive tree. We should be sharing the blessing with our true tribes.
That is, the Cain-type tribe, which is our neighbors, colleagues, friends, closest associates, and friends from professional fields. And we also should be blessing our Abel-type tribe, like all relatives, parents, our brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. Also, for settlement, Father made it clear that our families needed a condition to be able to connect with our True Parents.
Therefore, the coronation ceremony to honor True Parents as the king and queen of peace should be done by your tribe. So, you should conduct the coronation ceremony for your own family. This is the realm of settlement.
Settlement requires a condition, the condition of reading God's word, but also the condition of blessing. Your Cain-type tribe is your neighbors and associates, and your Abel-type tribe is your family. How do we do that blessing? We bless them with the holy wine.
We pray for their blessing, and at the next blessing ceremony, they actually receive the prayer of our True Parents. They become a blessed couple. That's the real essence of Ahn Shi Il. The settlement has to be on the blessing.
What about attendance? What does attendance mean?
The way we attend God and True Parents is not simply by attending the events that Father speaks at or simply by just expressing love for True Parents.
Although that is an aspect of attendance, the real essence of attendance is that we cooperate with and support God's providence that True Parents are initiating and directing through the central figures that Father has established.
God's providence is not a matter for the discussion of people in terms of what is God's will. Although it can be reviewed, or it can be understood or prayed over, actually, God's will comes from God. It's not something that we just vote on.
God has his will, and we believe as Unificationists and as blessed central families that God's will has now been manifested through our True Parents at this time.
That's why God's will is now manifesting not only to True Parents but also to True Parents' dispensational representatives.
The people that Father has approved. Then by uniting with that district director, uniting with your central figures centering on Father's direction.
For example, Father asked us to accomplish the Middle East peace initiative. Then, by cooperating to sponsor and to help people as ambassadors for peace, go to the Middle East. That is really the attendance that Father is talking about. It's not attending with only our hearts and feelings, but literally by supporting the direction of heaven.
True Father asked us to appoint 15,000 ambassadors for the peace centering on the dispensational central figures, district directors. We asked all blessed families to attend True Parents by helping to appoint those ambassadors for peace.
The ACLC is a dispensational organization created by True Father. Therefore, to really attend True Parents, we have to support True Parents' direction through ACLC, WFFP, YFFWP, Service for Peace, and CARP.
All the different organizations that Father initiated should be giving and following Father's direction, and that direction from Father is coming from district directors.
Therefore, Ahn Shi Il has to do with attendance and settlement. Settlement through a Hoondok family church in which we multiply by giving God's word and creating our family as a dwelling place of God.
By uniting vertically with True Parents' appointed representatives, we can truly fulfill our responsibilities.
Therefore, from this time on, please be sincere about the 8-day pledge that we do on Ahn Shi Il. When you pray sincerely with your family, you set a condition that God will be able to protect and guide you through the next 8 days.
We pray for God's abundant blessings to pour down on all of our families. We pray that all of your children and your children's children can really be blessed and also find true joy and happiness in the family movement based on true love.
Sun Myung Moon