Hak Ja Han
March 4, 2012
Women’s Federation for World Peace Convention
Convention Center, Daejeon, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
My beloved Women’s Federation for World Peace members and most honorable women leaders for peace:
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to God and Rev. Moon for the great success of this Convention to Open, Inherit and Fulfill the Era of the Victory, Liberation and Completion of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, held today in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Women’s Federation for World Peace. At the same time, I would like to convey my grateful heart to all of you.
The twenty years of WFWP
The Women’s Federation for World Peace was founded in April of 1992 as a central organization of the women’s peace movement, in accordance with the Will of Heaven, by Rev. Sun Myung Moon and me at the Seoul Olympic Stadium in Jamshil. It accompanied the declaration of the Advent of the Global Era of Women, attended by representative women from over seventy nations and one hundred and fifty thousand Korean woman leaders.
We did not intend this Federation to be a women’s organization typical of this world. It does not aim to be an external, political and combative women’s rights movement mainly targeting men, advocating expansion of women’s rights, gender equality, and working place rights. Rather, it is oriented by providence and designed to realize God’s ideal of creation. During the past twenty years, the Women’s Federation for World Peace, founded with such providential significance and guided by maternal love, has carried out various services and educational programs in all parts of the global village. These are to firmly establish families of true love that elevate women’s value. Consequently we have achieved amazing growth and development in the world.
From the early days of the Federation, I have conducted speaking tours across continents and nations to prepare the ground for the global activities of WFWP. Moreover, I mobilized all WFWP members around the world, including one thousand six hundred Japanese members who went to one hundred sixty nations as volunteers. At the founding rally of WFWP, Rev. Moon gave a founding message, the gist of which was, “Now, under True Mother who has triumphed as the historic representative of women in the world, women need to establish the model of true mother and true wife and form ideal families through the true love movement. Furthermore, women have to carry out the model of true love in a campaign of living for the sake of others in all fields of endeavor, including government, economy, culture, and social service.” Accordingly, we have carried out volunteer activities and educational programs as well as campaigns to bring about the resolution of international conflicts and reconciliation transcending the barriers of race, religion, language and nationality.
After three years of hard work, capped by an address I gave in the United Nations Headquarters, New York, in September 1993, led the United Nations Economic and Social Council to grant WFWP general consultative status, the highest recognition given nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). I am delighted to tell you that, since then, the re-evaluations held every four years, which entail a strict assessment of activities and achievements, regularly confirm our status. I believe it is clear that the UN recognizes our true value. Of the more than three thousand four hundred UN NGOs, only one hundred forty are awarded this highest status.
In particular, WFWP has carried out various local projects in all parts of the world to realize the UN’s Millennium Development Goals instituted at the beginning of the new millennium. Those projects have taken root and are bearing fruit in nations and communities. Consequently, governments are recognizing and supporting WFWP, and this is truly encouraging.
The Middle East Women Leaders Peace Council, which has been hosted every year since 1997 under my guidance, has attracted interest and participation from woman leaders of the nations in the Middle East. Now it has expanded and developed into a more concrete, wide ranging WFWP campaign. Moreover, bringing woman leaders of the Middle East to the center of activities carried out for human rights and peace, going beyond religious barriers, is a truly remarkable achievement.
Construction of a peaceful world
Each year from the year 2000, we have hosted the World Women Leaders Workshop at beautiful meeting places in different continents. Here, participants share their firsthand experience from all corners of the global village, their wisdom, and their vision for the future, including ways to proceed in healthy cooperation. Taking it a step further, the different continents and countries including Korea, the WFWP International Headquarters, Japan, the United States, the UN Secretariat, Asia, Europe, Canada, Central and South America, Africa and Oceania are developing and carrying out various projects adapted to the needs of their locale. I am proud of and grateful to them all.
Furthermore, we are actively conducting relief aid work to resolve the problems of natural calamities and poverty in various parts of the globe. In particular, under the slogan, “Let us share a little of what we have,” we are carrying out the “1% Love Share Project” to help the children and women in North Korea with good results. Moreover, through several effective enterprises, including specialized local businesses to support WFWP in their communities, we are keenly realizing that the power of women is changing societies and achieving amazing results in the creation of a peaceful world.
Above all, the Peace Leaders Invitational Divine Principle Seminar, held more than thirty times, helps woman leaders realize their divinity. It presents them with vital insights regarding the proper direction for their lives. The program has deeply moved many leaders and helped them fulfill their potential.
As can be seen, our members have maintained their determination, pioneering the path of women’s peace with quiet forbearance and an unchanging heart from the federation’s founding in Seoul to the highest level of the UN. Therefore, I would like to give a big round of applause to express my infinite gratitude and love to the woman leaders who have never failed to offer their encouragement and participation.
Beloved Women’s Federation for World Peace members and women leaders for peace!
What is the path that people must take today? Even now tens of millions of innocent lives are being lost each year to war, disease, starvation and natural disasters that arise in all parts of the world. In every field you observe, whether religion, politics, education, culture or philosophy, from the individual to the world, people are deeply mired in the swamps of self-centered egoism, isolated by impenetrable barriers. We now live on a planet brought to ruin, where genuine communication has broken down.
Ultimately, the problems afflicting humanity can only be resolved through the worldview of “One Family Under God,” in other words, a teaching based on true love, which my husband and I, the True Parents, learned from Heaven and have championed and taught throughout our lives. This is because it is the only way for people to find the path toward peace and happiness.
Korean Peninsula prepared by God
We are now living in the historic time of a great cosmic revolution that will change history, unite the spiritual and physical worlds, and create the ideal kingdom of heaven that God has longed for since the beginning of time. We can no longer postpone or prolong it. Heaven has already proclaimed that January 13, 2013 will be “Foundation Day.” That day will mark the beginning and genesis of the substantial Cheon Il Guk. That day is now less than a year away.
Therefore, it is time for all people to be humbly obedient to Heaven’s decree. The fateful moment awaits us on this day. We need to devote ourselves completely with a life or death commitment for this remaining year under the guidance of True Parents, who are carrying out the providence on earth as the substantial representatives of God, the King of peace.
Do you have any idea how much pain God suffered the moment our first ancestors fell, inherited Satan’s lineage, and disappeared into darkness? He had created them as His children, investing unreserved devotion for eons. Have you ever even thought about the long, dark tunnel of indemnification our Heavenly Parent has had to go through as He waited and endured tens of thousands of years of heartache so excruciating that His bones cried and His flesh quivered? Have you ever shed even one teardrop for our forlorn Heavenly Parent?
Ladies and gentlemen, in silence God has raised and prepared the Korean people for thousands of years. As you well know, God sent His true son Jesus Christ to earth two thousand years ago to save humankind.
The outcome, however, was truly a wretched one. The religious leaders and people of the nation, who were supposed to receive Jesus as the Messiah and follow him with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience, instead allowed him to die on the cross, didn’t they? In the end, Jesus accomplished our spiritual salvation, cried out the words, “It is finished,” and left this world. (John 19:30) Sadly, it took two thousand years of preparation for his Second Coming to finally take place, on the Korean Peninsula.
Throughout their history, the Korean people have worshiped God as the highest and primal ancestor of their forefathers. They called that single being and progenitor of all people “the One,” meaning God, and served Him as the Lord, the Creator of night and day. This is why all creation begins from the numbers one and two. Because the Korean people have served God as their original ancestor, interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values are alive in their spirit and tradition, and thus they continue to this day.
They have continued as a people for more than live thousand years of history, not once invading or plundering another nation or people. The spirit of benefiting all humanity flows in the veins of the Korean people. Furthermore, the spirit of filial piety, fidelity and loyalty, the fundamental virtues of human life, are alive and moving in the people of Korea today.
The true filial piety shown by Shim Cheong who, when she was still in the flower of youth, threw herself into the sea, enabling her blind father to regain his sight, is the standard of filial piety for the Korean people, who serve and attend their parents. The profound love and fidelity displayed by Choonhyang, who risked death rather than break the promise she had made to her husband, is the signpost for the lives of all Korean women. The unbreakable loyalty exhibited by Admiral Yi Soon-shin, who gave his life to save his nation and people despite being forsaken by his king and other leaders, is indeed the pride of the Korean noble spirit.
These treasured Korean traditional values are not just matters of historical accident. Based on them, God prepared the Korean people and laid the foundation for the providence to establish the Messiah. Thus, riding on the energy of the Korean Peninsula, the True Parents of humankind and the King of kings could finally appear after receiving the seal of Heaven.
The era of substantial Cheon Il Guk
Beloved WFWP members, my fellow woman leaders! The path that humanity needs to take now is clear. Why would you hesitate in the face of the D-Day that Heaven has revealed through True Parents? Only a year remains; Heaven’s blessings will be with you on your ambitious and busy course.
If you view the flow of history from the viewpoint of God’s providence, you can see that the changes can be broadly classified into three stages. First is the “era of worldly matters” that is, a time when materialism took precedence. Next came the “era of human affairs,” a period dominated by humanism and knowledge, with the assumption that God is an aloof Creator.
However, these eras were transitional. They were eras we needed to undergo in the process of entering the era in which people can rid themselves of their fallen nature, return to their original selves, and live as one united family under God as their Father.
The final stage is the “era of heavenly affairs.” Here, people follow the path of living for the sake of others. Each establishes an absolute standard beginning with the marriage Blessing ceremony, an internal and external purification. In other words, this is the time of opening the era of Cheon Il Guk, when we can return to the heart of the one true God. Please engrave this in your heart.
Once the era of the substantial Cheon Il Guk begins, we will establish the Association Connecting the Spiritual and Physical Worlds, the central axial position that governs all creation. To put it another way, the spiritual and physical worlds will connect and substantially unite and the providence will proceed according to heavenly law and the heavenly way.
Elections conducted in a purely secular fashion will disappear from the face of the earth. All people will become one family through cross-cultural and inter-racial marriages, and we will live in tranquility and prosperity, enjoying true love, peace and happiness.
This day is now right before our eyes.
Teaching values and building true families
All of you need to engrave True Parents’ teachings onto your bones and practice them in your lives. We have no choice. All that is left for us to do is to inherit, succeed and accomplish the blessing of the opening of the gates to the era of the victorious liberation and perfection of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.
If we do not prepare now, we will surely be left behind. We need to learn from the courage and fortitude of the white-necked cranes that in preparation for winter fly across the Himalayas, which are more than seven thousand meters high.
I believe that, based on the public laws and principles of the universe, our WFWP members need to form sound families in accordance with the heavenly way and rightly endow their communities and nations with a special sense of mission.
However, I would like to emphasize once again that the movement we must prioritize before anything else is the true family movement, based on true love through living for the sake of others, carried out in conjunction with educating for the highest values.
Women also have to become standard-bearers of the peace movement. Included in the essential mission of this federation are various activities for the reunification of South and North Korea. Women have to play a leading role in bringing about Korea’s unification and world peace. This will come by means of education in the thought and practice of true love.
Wars and conflicts arise from selfish motives from which emerge the desire to take others’ land, possessions and the like by force. On the other hand, peace arises from investing oneself for others by giving true love. In the final stage, the “era of heavenly affairs,” in which we are to follow the path of living for the sake of others, the Cold War has ended and new hopes for peace and social justice are spreading across the entire globe at an amazing pace.
Those leaders who turn their faces away from the new realities of the world, or who refuse to see them, will be wiped away by the changes that are sweeping in like a tidal wave. I believe the time has now come for us to step forward boldly, embrace our new opportunities and model the highest values.
Beloved WFWP members and my fellow woman leaders! Women are not born just to help or to be protected by men; rather, we are interdependent individuals who, as the representative of the other half of God’s nature, are meant to make men more complete and manly. Centered on the ideal of true love, women are the precious object partners of men’s love. In terms of value, men and women are absolute equals.
Thus men and women, united through the original true love of God’s ideal, are created to become completely equal in terms of value. Based on true love, they are to share the right of equal participation, the right to the same rank and the right of mutual ownership of their possessions. Therefore, men and women do not need to confront or contend with each other, imitate the characteristics, dispositions or roles of the other, or covet them and try to take them by force. Instead, we are to unite as a larger whole, sharing ourselves one with another, by giving to the other what we have, with true love, and thereby completing each other.
Now is the moment to rise to the next level
In the twenty-first century, women, together with men, have to play a major role in world events by serving as the wheels of progress advancing the construction of a peaceful world. Going beyond the century of power and technology, women will be the central axis in building the century of love and a culture of peace, with our role more important than ever before.
Even though the world of today is filled with confusion and chaos, the women’s peace movement of this federation, united under God’s vision of true love, will soar up to a whole new level based on our achievements of the past twenty years. We need to strengthen our network with global woman leaders for the expansion of the worldwide women’s peace movement and dedicate ourselves with the conviction that we can purify this world into a beautiful haven of peace wherein God’s ideal of creation is realized. If we can do so, God’s absolute authority and the divine protection and great blessings of the spiritual world will be with us.
Let us all walk the path of the true mother, true wife, true daughter and true woman leader, who can construct a united world overflowing with true freedom, peace and happiness.
Thank you for listening attentively, and may God’s blessings be with you and your families in all of your endeavors.
Thank you.