Hyung Jin Moon
May 8, 2011
Istanbul, Turkey
Your excellencies, distinguished leaders, Ambassadors for Peace, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters!
Thank you for honoring this great day and noble occasion with your presence today. It is my distinct honor to introduce our next speaker, who will deliver the Founders' Address for this historic World Assembly. This is not an easy task. As you know, the next speaker happens to be my father, the Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon. And I believe many of you have heard of him perhaps.
I have know him as the most wise and loving father for the past 33 years. Together with my mother, he brought me into this world. And not a day has gone by in which his love and guidance has not nurtured, sustained, challenged and enlightened me on my own path to a closer relationship with God. I truly have been blessed with the best father and the best mother in the world. I would like to ask you all to give them a very wonderful round of applause.
At the same time I also have come to realize, very deeply, that my parents are not simply my physical parents. They are not simply the parents of their 14 biological children. In fact, I confess that only in the past several years did I awaken to a fuller and deeper and more truthful understanding of the spiritual value and significance of my parents, Father and Mother Moon, as the returning Christ and Lord of the Second Advent.
As you know, we recognize my parents as the True Parents, and in this position they stand as spiritual parents to all God's children, as Jesus, the Christ, should have done. In other words, their mission and their value extends far beyond our normal concept of good parents in a conventional family or our concept of great leaders of a world class peace organization, or even our concept of a founder of a religion.
Then what kind of person is the man who will speak to us tonight? He has been known in various ways throughout his life, as master, as messiah, as True Father. And I personally struggled a long time to try to understand these terms and the true nature and mission of my father. We know that the concept of the messiah has various names and meanings depending on the language, the culture and the environment. But the essential meaning is related to the one who fulfills God's original ideal and humankind's desire to once again stand justified before God in a fully restored position.
God. too, is known by various names such as Jahwe, Jehova, Allah, Hananim, the Great Spirit, Ultimate Being, and other names. But what is most essential, however, is that God is the parent of humankind. He is the source of true love and compassion and is the incorporeal True Parents, who is the spring of goodness. That is why we call God the parent of humankind whose providence is aimed at overcoming the effects of the human fall and re-establishing the parent child relationship with humankind. God's providence is fulfilled through the coming of the corporeal True Parents, who, as the true son and purpose of creation, can communicate with and respond to God, the incorporeal True Parents, as his true object partner.
Ladies and gentlemen, True Parent's life course has been one of inheriting the true love of God, perfecting that true love and bequeathing it to humankind. In this way True Parents have led the way to the liberation of God. They have suffered and been tortured, imprisoned, scorned and hated for us. They have taken on the burdens for our sins and made a way for us to be forgiven by God. They have suffered the torment and damnation that we deserve and have paid the price for us to come before God as sons and daughters. And this is the path of the Christ and the path that our True Parents have walked.
Before I invite them to the podium I want to leave you with one request. I want to ask you, through this program tonight, that you do your very best to come to understand True Parents' value. Let us understand who they are and that they have come to fulfill an extraordinary mission. Let us view the True Parents of heaven, earth and humankind not merely through our physical eyes but through our spiritual eyes. And let us listen intently to these precious words with an open heart and an open mind.
Brothers and sisters, I would like to ask you all to rise from your seats at this point, and please join me in giving a rousing round of applause, to offer glory and honor to the one and only Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon!