Cheon Seong Gyeong Ⅱ - 204. The Significance and Value of Blessed Marriage
1 The literal meaning of our word for the Blessing, chukbok, is “praying for blessings.” If you analyze the word chukbok, chuk means to pray or wish for something. When you are praying for blessings, what is most precious? The blessing of love is most precious. The core starting point of the universe’s promise is a man and a woman creating harmony. So the Blessing is the most wonderful thing. Because the Blessing is the greatest blessing you can receive, the Unification Church refers to the wedding ceremony as “the Blessing.” When we in the Unification Church say we have received the Blessing, we do not mean we have received some worldly, present day blessing. When we speak of the Blessing, we mean that we have been joined in holy matrimony by the leader of the Unification Church. (83-226, 1976.02.08)
The purpose of marrying
2 We marry to resemble the form of God. God exists with dual characteristics of masculinity and femininity. He is a unified being in whom both characteristics exist together in harmony. Men and women were created to reflect the dual characteristics of God. Therefore, a man and a woman should come together in complete unity and harmony, become like the seed, and return to the state of the original nature of God. (290-055, 1998.02.02)
3 Men and women are each only half of a whole entity. Therefore women must conquer the world of men and men must conquer the world of women. That is how they are perfected. They come to resemble God by joining their separate manifestations of God’s dual characteristics back together through love. God and people are to unite based on the love between subject and object partners. The reason God has dual characteristics is also because of love. The most precious things for people are their sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, their spouses and their parents. You cannot perfect your love unless you go through the progression of child, sibling, spouse and parent. That is why you must marry and give birth to sons and daughters. This is a formula. It is a cycle that repeats. (260-242, 1994.05.19)
4 Why do we marry? For Adam and Eve it was not so that they could discover their mutual love. It was to make the vertical love of God as the nucleus and, centered on that, create a spherical form as the embodiment of the Father. God’s ideal of creation is also fulfilled by focusing on such a love, and only through the union of a mature man and a mature woman can love be fulfilled and connected to life. The connection cannot be made through life but rather through love. Based on vertical parental love, the seeds of original love can be connected for the first time through horizontal conjugal love. (173-288, 1988.02.21)
5 People marry to give love to God. We love God because we need to become one with God. When we become one with God based on the eternal love of the absolute God, we can realize eternal life. This is not all. The world created by God through love belongs to Him of course, but that world can become mine through the right of inheritance. At the place where we come to meet with God, He bequeaths to us the right to inherit the entire universe. (136-040, 1985.12.20)
6 If a man and a woman want to achieve individual perfection, they need to do so by perfecting their partner, and that is why they must marry. They cannot enter the realm of love if they are not married. The reason people need to marry is so they can relate to the love of God. A man and woman cannot fully connect to the love of God if they are not married. When they marry, the love of God resides with them, and they become one through this love. God can then bequeath the whole universe to them, including God Himself, His love and everything that belongs to Him. (135-327, 1985.12.15)
7 People marry to perfect their individual love while at the same time perfecting the love of their partner. Doesn’t it feel good to know you marry to perfect both your love and the love of God? Men and women have to marry to prepare the foundation on earth through which God can love. The love of God cannot reside there until a man and woman unite together based on the foundation of love. In the final analysis, people marry for the sake of God’s love, that is, to possess the love of God. (165-087, 1987.05.20)
8 A man should know that the woman standing in front of him is God’s daughter and the feminine aspect of humanity. Before she is my wife, she belongs to humankind. Only if you can love her as a woman who is loved by humanity and love her as God’s beloved daughter, are you qualified to be her husband. Women are the same. Do not think, “He is my man.” Think of him as God’s son and as a man representing all humankind. You have to love and serve him more than humanity does and more than God does. (88-318, 1976.10.03)
9 God desires for husbands and wives to say, “The man will become the right foot and the woman the left, and we will find happiness through making a family that leaves footprints of love for humanity and for God.” The right foot is the husband and the left foot is the wife. Do not become lame! You have to think, “We will surely move forward!” You also have to progress straight ahead. Only then are you qualified to be married. You have to think, “When I think admiringly of my husband, I am thinking admiringly of all people and thinking admiringly of God. When I love my husband, I am loving all humanity and loving God.” (88-318, 1976.10.03) |