The Seonghwa Youth Association

The meaning of Seonghwa

The Seonghwa Christian Students Association was launched on December 31, 1954, as the first affiliate of HSA-UWC. The name Seonghwa was bestowed personally by True Father, and since then, many organizations have adopted that name.

According to his words, “Seonghwa” means completion and harmony, that is, to achieve completion by harmonizing with others. The Seonghwa Christian Students Association changed its name to Seonghwa Youth Association on March 27, 1955, on the day the first issue of the magazine Seonghwa was published. It remained at the center of the Holy Spirit Association activities until 1960.

1. You need to know the meaning of the title, “Seonghwa Youth Association.” The word Seonghwa does not mean to harmonize passively by receiving some stimulation. It actively means to harmonize.

You who started based on the former meaning tend to like doing something in the morning, but cry and wail in the evening and then do whatever you feel like at night.

You cannot be that way. If you are the people who know God's Will, you cry in the morning but are happy at night. You like things in the beginning, but at the end give many excuses and conditions.

That is why I make the Seonghwa graduates go through hardships. If the only way to save the people of our nation is to send you to the front line of the battle, where some of you may fall into the pits of death, I will have to do so.
(013-119, 1963/11/08)

2. What kind of meaning does Seonghwa have? The character Hwa in the word “chemistry” means “to change the original character,” but the Hwa in “Seonghwa” is different. Seonghwa means achieving harmony – through absolute objectivity – with the original character of God.

You are to accomplish the Will of God through this meaning of Seonghwa. You have to consolidate your worldview, your view of life, and your heavenly heart. You, as a ripened, perfect seed,

need to shed your skin. That way you can become a clean grain. You must make sure you never hear from others, “Your Teacher is wonderful, but his disciples are not that good.” (025-108, 1969/09/30)

3. The word hwa in Seonghwa means that one's individuality is what it is. There is a term we use for this, which is “individual embodiment of truth.” If there are 1,000 people here, each one of you is different.

Each of you has your own nature. Seonghwa means to become one centering on each individual's nature. The term “chemical combination” means to combine elements into one compound, thereby changing the elements' differing characteristics, but Seonghwa means uniting as one while keeping each individual's characteristics intact. Seonghwa means all individuals are united into one.

The oneness thus achieved is called unity. When all individuals' characteristics have achieved completion and are connected, they unite completely as one. Thus, unity is achieved. (253-129, 1994/01/23)

4. When you look at the word Seonghwa in Seonghwa Youth Association, seong means completion and hwa means harmony. Together, Seonghwa means to achieve completion by harmonizing with one another. To do so, you first have to pass through the stage of the Word.

Second, you have to become a person who can respectfully communicate with God. You can communicate with God in your heart without having to discuss every detail with Him. Most of all, you must become the central person of harmony.

You need to become a person of character who can unite with people front and back, top and bottom, left and right. Thus, the standard you can reach is to become the substance of God's blessings.

Jesus worked on the front line of the providence when he was a young man. The most important period in one's life is the youthful years around age 30. In your work during that period, you need to add the passion and fervor of your youthful course to Father's youthful course.

That is the time of your life when you can be fully part of the great undertaking of re-creation and achieve glory. You have to have a heart that thoroughly says, “I am not the same as you” to the people of the world. You have to have the spirit to declare, “Even though you cannot do it, I can do it!”

In any difficult circumstance, you need to be able to say, I am not the same as you are. Historically, temporally, horizontally, from any angle you look at it, I am different. In difficult situations you have to have the determination that “If I do not move, nothing is going to happen.” (008-329, 1960/02/21)

5. Among you, is there any young man or woman who has life stirring within? If there is such a person, that person needs to prove the laws of heaven in the presence of the church pastors and elders and thus earn the qualification to criticize their character and judge them based on the values of heaven.

Do not countenance any being in heaven or on earth who opposes the heart of God. When you join the Unification Church, you must transcend the concepts of established religions. Go beyond their unconvincing concepts of faith.

The concepts of faith that have existed until now have failed to serve as the haven where God can dwell, and we can attend to the substance of Jesus. Therefore, have no mercy on yourself; decide courageously to step over those concepts and go beyond them. (003-274, 1958/01/12)

6. Young people, your youthful days do not last long. Since you have learned about the Will and stepped forward to devote yourself to God, you need to dedicate the precious days of your youth to heaven without any regrets. As you do so, think of how precious these days are. Occasionally, you see people who regret that they spent their youth in a way that had no meaning in terms of the Will.

Such people complain and groan because they forgot the Will of God and how worthy it is to work for the Will during one's youth.

Everyone reaches their peak in their youth, which can be said to be the golden age of their life. The question is, for whom will you spend those days?

The days you lived for the nation and the world will go down in history forevermore. This is more worthy than living these days for one's own sake, or the happiness of one's family. (043-067, 1971/04/18)

The role of young people

After the establishment of HSA-UWC, young people and students were at the center. Aspiring youths and students were the power and pride of the church. Most of the early members were outstanding individuals who hailed from society's upper class.

A rumor even arose that “the Unification Church is frequented only by intellectuals.” The young people were the pillars of the church. They played a frontline role in advancing the work of restoring people and the world.

True Father made strenuous efforts to raise them as leaders. He took them outdoors to train them to challenge their limitations and, at the same time, to allow them, challenge to be close to nature.

7. In general, when university students graduate, they find work. Next, they start a family. It is the same for you and me as members of the Unification Church. The form is quite similar. After graduation from school, as citizens of Korea, you naturally find a way to contribute to the nation.

You will live within the moral sphere of your society. Whether you are a man or a woman, you will create a family and carry on with life. The direction is the same. But the steps of those who go out to the worldly society stay within the society. Those who go out to the family stay within the family.

Given this reality, you will always live in pessimism and disappointment if you cannot go beyond the boundary of your family and the boundary of society and move forward to the nation and world with voluntary and independent conviction to pioneer and to make each day substantially active and fruitful.

Many young people today feel this pessimism and disappointment.

Our direction is the same as theirs, but our circumstances are different. When we form a family, we become the head of our family, and it does not end there. We go beyond the environment of our family and connect the path of our family to the path of a tribe.

From there, we make the form of a core family that can unite people, a family on the world level. As can be seen, our position and the scope of our thinking are different from that of young people in general. We as individuals seek to fulfill these missions.

In the position of subject partner, we prepare our external abilities, engage in active practice, and influence others. You must become the kind of person who can influence others. Without such power, we cannot achieve any of our goals.
(025-080, 1969/09/30)

8. What is the pride that young people need to maintain within themselves, and who are the youth that God would come looking for? This is the question. It is not the youth who follow the stained course of our fallen ancestors, Adam and Eve.

It is not the youth who doubt and complain. God's work cannot be accomplished without pure young people who declare, “Absolute sacrifice, absolute faith, absolute obedience, and absolute harmony are the only way to proceed.”

The place where you are standing as Seonghwa middle and high school students of the Unification Church differs from that of past historical eras. You were born when the critical point in the age of restoration is approaching.

You, who are inspired by Unification Thought, will have to appear to the new world on the foundation of the united physical and spiritual worlds and the foundation of the physical Abel.

You in particular, as new flag bearers, are not old grandparents or adults. You have young blood.

Only when shining groups of young people can be found in at least one place on earth, can God's sorrowful and painful heart of 6,000 years be comforted.

Only those young people can pull out and reverse the root of evil that became the base of Adam's ill will. If we cannot find them, darkness will persist throughout the cosmos. Therefore, God is calling this young generation. (059-275, 1972/07/27)

9. You have to walk the same path your ancestors trod. We are the same as the people of Israel in the wilderness. Moses and the people of Israel were chased and went through suffering in the wilderness.

Likewise, Jesus was persecuted by his people and religion. He was distrusted even by his family. You have to experience this same kind of sad and mortifying situation. But do not be discouraged.

What will you do if you are put in this position of being mistreated? You must experience the heart of our Father, who has suffered historically. Think of your ancestors' pain as your pain, and stand together with a heart that will not change for tens of thousands of years.

Move forward while harboring enmity only toward Satan. Heaven needs young men and women who can go this way.

Heaven has been looking for truthful young people who yearn for heaven's will. Since God gave this mission to us instead of other people in this nation, we have to become elite soldiers who can march forward to face heaven's enemies.

We experience deeply to the marrow of our bones the sorrowful heart of our Father. To achieve this, you need to unite your life and your beliefs. You need to march forward to resolve the sorrows of God, the sorrows of Jesus, the sorrows of your ancestors, and the sorrows of your descendants. (003-296, 1958/01/19)

10. You young people must honor and care for the 30 million people of Korea before caring for yourselves. Before thinking of yourselves, let the mind that thinks of all people on earth well up.

The mind that holds one blade of grass and can cry for it has to explode within you beyond all understanding. Without this heart, you cannot become perfected sons and daughters of God. Such people are the fruits of God's tears and pain, offerings on God's altar of blood.

Who can pioneer the path of these people? It must be those who can truly beat the ground, pound their chest, and wail for the people. The ones who can save this world are young people. (005-021, 1958/11/09)

11. Passing through 5,000 years of history, the Korean people have walked a path of suffering. The people of this nation have walked with sadness, sorry, and injustice, without being able to appeal to anyone.

What will become of these people? They are like orphans. We must hold their hands and cry with them. Only by doing that can we help the people of this nation survive. No matter what mistakes they may have made, they are our brothers and sisters, created by God with the same blood, bones, and flesh.

There need to appear those young people who think beyond their circumstances, young people who can weep with these people with empathy and a true parental heart, one with the historical lineage of True Parents. Such young people are needed.

When young people apply all of their burning passion to fulfill their desires or make a successful career, that passion will conclude within the limits of their individual lives. (005-080, 1958/12/21)

12. The original ideal for human beings is to cross over limitless barriers and embrace God in joy. We have to pour forth passion to achieve the original ideal. If God's providence engages with such groups of

people as they follow a course of history, what kind of people would God want to see as a result of that providence?

It would be the group of people who can shed tears to achieve God's Will, who can weep as they become entwined in one purpose, one heart, and one action, who volunteer with tears to become the first offerings. God is looking for such a group of people. (005-080, 1958/12/21)

13. Evil stands face-to-face against us and Satan opposes us as we search for the conscientious standard.

Therefore, we need to form a relationship with heaven at the place where our hearts and heaven's heart bond, where human affection and heaven's affection unite, the place where our thinking and heaven's thinking are indistinguishable, where our lives and heaven's life become one, and where our love and heaven's love interweave.

If the hearts, lives, ideas, and loves of heaven and human beings are united, this relationship can never be cut.

Even fallen people have a hard time cutting off relationships with each other. They cry their eyes out trying to hold on to their relationships. But who can cut off a relationship that became one through heaven's affection?

Even all the powers of evil in the world cannot cut off the flow of the heart that is connected to God, the origin of our mind and soul. Until humankind finds such a heavenly standard, history will be tormented and humanity will moan.

Is there a brave person who can prevent this from happening in this world? I eagerly look forward to finding such a brave person among young men and women, a person to take on this responsibility, a person who will pioneer this mission and walk the path of this mission wholeheartedly, exploding with love over the capital city of Satan.

God hopes to see many such dauntless, elite soldiers of heaven.
(005-158, 1959/01/11)

14. Our hearts compel us to move forward to the place of ultimate truth. In the end, our hearts determine everything about us. People who hold on to their hearts and carefully search farthest can hear the words they are given, understand the visions they are shown, and analyze the reality of life.

If some young men and women search for a new teaching, while feeling the responsibilities that have been given them, while suppressing an anxious heart and restless mind, and if there exists a movement with a heart that can hear their cries, you too, through that heart, will be able to grasp everything in history and everything you have ever felt.

People who feel this and awaken will say, “This is the teaching heaven has been searching for!

This is the truth the world has been searching for! This is what God can establish proudly in front of heaven and earth!” Those who have these moments cry out despite their history, of providence, and the heavenly laws.

In the present age, you are following a path of life on which you should fulfill your duties and leave behind achievements in the world of relationships and connections.

When that comes to pass, you can be proud of yourself, awakened to the fact that “I am the victor who represents the original, innate human nature!” At such a moment, this world and this universe will become yours and God too will become your God. (006-121, 1959/04/12)

15. Through us arises the starting point of happiness for heaven, earth, and humankind. Someone has to take responsibility for this work.

If you see some people who cannot walk properly for the tears in their eyes, who throw themselves down and appeal to God on their knees, begging to shoulder this responsibility, then bow down before them and repent deeply.

If you encounter people who shed blood and sweat for heaven and the Will with thankful hearts, without thinking of themselves even though they are in a miserable situation, you must follow these people even risking your life.

Such believers, such conscientious people, must arise among the people of Korea. If this does not happen, the Korean people will perish. Imagine a group of people who declare, “I am the stepping-stone of God's eternal and unchanging truth.

Even though I am hungry, in ragged clothes, and uneducated, apart from me, no one can hold Your hand with a sincere heart and devotion. Other than me, no one can adjust Your clothes.

Other than me, no one can fix Your shoes. Other than by me, it cannot be done.” On the day such a group of people comes together, they can conquer Satan's world without a fight. We are the important factor.
(010-180, 1960/09/25)