The Blessed Couple Foundation Course V.5 — De Geode · Following the Stories of Real People

This is a 43-day course for couples whose marriage received God’s Blessing through the Family Federation for World Peace. We designed this course to help couples build a foundation through knowing and applying the principles of true love. You will achieve strength, resiliency and happiness through love, including sexual love, in a relationship with God.

We are grateful that you allowed a blessed couple to give you the marriage Blessing. You reversed the mistake made by Adam and Eve. That mistake has been—in biblical terms—a curse upon sex and marriage. The Blessing removed it.

Now what? We want to give you something of great value to us. These are basic principles that help blessed marriages achieve what we call, “absolute sex.”

You aﬃrmed that world peace comes through ideal families and shared a cup of holy juice or holy wine. A prayer together represented your commitment to each other and your renewal as a blessed couple.

What are the next steps? How do we deepen our love, resist temptation, and become true spouses and true parents?

The first element is Selflessness, to live for the sake of our spouse.

Selflessness is something we should have learned when we were growing up, but we really didn’t. To learn selflessness, we go back to being kids and teens. We relate as siblings, friends, partners and mother and son.

It means that the second element is Celibacy.

Yep, no sex, for forty days. Like Noah’s Ark, Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus in the desert. Self- discipline is good for the spirit, and what’s good for the spirit is good for the marriage.

In the Bible, the number forty connects with purification and oﬀering. Psychologically, forty days is a good start to shed old habits and develop new ones.

To make it through 40 days of celibacy requires mind over body. It requires a shared marriage promise. For a guy, it requires relating to your wife as your mom. For a woman, it means to care for—and discipline—your husband as your son. (We know you already do that anyway, but here at least he admits it!)

Above all, it requires faith in God, putting Him at the center of your relationship. When Noah, Moses and Jesus began their 40-day periods, God was behind it. It was only with God that they could succeed.

On the foundation of selflessness and celibacy, the third element is Sex.

Actually, sex—absolute sex—is a goal of the course. Our goal is sex that is so pure, powerful and ecstatic that it makes God want to dive into bed with you. It is sex to which the world and all its riches pales, sex that makes you the pulse of creation, the yang and the yin, the origin of the universe.

This is not a simple accomplishment. You are taking 40 days to prepare for it. Its purpose is to re-create you as a couple perfectly in tune with each other in lovemaking. Your spiritual love and physical love is the foundation for your interactions in everyday life, your care for a household and children, your care for the community, and your professional life. Ultimately, you will learn to become one flesh as a couple. God’s dwelling place is with us.

THE COURSE METHOD

Each week will begin with a get-together with your mentor couple. You will talk over the course outline for the week. You can share about your experiences in the previous week and prepare for the coming week’s exercises.

Even the greatest marriage can get better, and that’s a good thing, because it means that marriage is about love, and love is infinite.

So, for a few weeks you will step back and relate as friends, as brother and sister. See if you can relate as mother and son. Let the husband trim the sails and set the anchor and the wife steer the boat.

In terms of your abstinence from sex during this period, think of it as reliving your time of ideal engagement, of courtship, and of preparation for marriage. Free from sexual issues for a while, you can work on your relationship as independent individuals getting to know each other, trying to impress and please the other, researching how the other thinks, what they like and don’t like.

In this way, you can work on things you’ve been putting aside. And you will find sexual love enhanced as you make an amazing new beginning as you “come down from the Ark” in week seven.

The Work Load

We oﬀer a series of themes for daily and weekly reflection and relationship-building. The questions will get you to talk together and share as you work through your relationship. It is designed for you to learn from each other, work through some troubles and clear out cobwebs and sob-webs.

The 43-days are designed around eight purposes:

1. To remember 2. To repent

3. To rediscover 4. To respect

5. To renew 6. To redetermine

7. To recreate 8. To rejoice

We build simple exercises by which you can fulfill those purposes. You will have time to think on your own, to share what you are thinking about, and to gain realizations that will add God’s love to your own, the vertical love coming down to your horizontal love in perfect balance.

And mentor couples—you are going to be going through much of this too!

TRIP ADVISORIES

STAY FLEXIBLE: As written in this book, this course is pretty intensive. It’s for people who have time to write a lot and sort things out. Your couple might prefer just to read the book and talk about it, or just to write a little here and there. Please adapt the course to your learning style. But, with your mentor couple, don’t lose focus on the main points.

STAY BUSY: Forty days of celibacy may be challenging. You’ll meet once a week (more if you like) with a mentor couple, but otherwise, you’re on your own. Therefore, another purpose of this course is to give you stuﬀ to do during the week. Stuﬀ that keeps your mind on heaven, your eyes on the prize.

BUILD A SPIRITUAL RHYTHM: It really helps if you schedule the same time everyday to do the reflections, conversations and meditations of the course work. Probably twenty minutes is enough each day. It could be first thing in the morning, getting up a little early. It could be at the end of the day, or just after dinner. Whatever works for you.

GO OVER THE BUMPS, AVOID THE POTHOLES: Every relationship goes through diﬃcult moments. On a trip, you hit bumps and potholes, and what do you do? You learn that, hmmm, this is a bit of a bumpy road, there are potholes out there. So you keep your eyes out for them, slow down a bit, learn how to avoid them. Most important, you stay on the journey.

FOCUS ON THE SPIRIT: Marriage is for couples of all faiths and spiritual paths, and so is this course. We include passages from the Bible and all scriptures. We oﬀer prayers as something to include according to your heart and faith.

Week 1: To Remember

Introduction: The mentor couple’s testimony, centering on how you became part of the Family Federation, and how you were blessed in marriage.

To get started:

Recall how your relationship started and turned into a marriage. Share about this with each other. Then, during this week, reflect upon it, write some things down and compare notes.

MEMORY LANE LIST

Memories of the first time you met ____________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

Memories of what it was that attracted you to your spouse _____________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ______________

Memories of how your relationship evolved from acquaintance to friendship, love, and life-long commitment? _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

Memories of the points of decision, and what led to those decisions _____________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________

GOAL FOR THE COMING WEEK: Vision, Beauty and Apology

Here’s what you will do tomorrow, Day 1, __________________________: Think about your VISION for your marriage. What was your vision when you began? Perhaps it was very clear to you. Perhaps it was more subconscious, and so you might have to reflect on the vision you had inside, even if you have never expressed it to each other.

Describing a vision is like describing a dream—it’s all in the present tense. For example:

“I’m walking across a bridge and see my wife in the distance. We walk together into a garden of roses and butterflies.”

“My husband is bringing me my favorite pastry and coﬀee in bed. The sun is shining through the curtains as our children and puppy jump onto the bed with a present—and it isn’t even my birthday!”

“We are living in a Hawaiian beach house. I’m teaching history at a university and my spouse is running a ceramics studio.”

“We are in our eighties and our children and their families are successful and we get together often.”

You get the picture. You can make a list—write the visions you had for your marriage, great and small.

It may include number of children and grandchildren, where you will live, what your employment will be, externals like that.

But even more important is your vision for your relationship, your love and care for each other, your emotional attachment.

And your vision for the legacy you will leave for your children and descendants. What you hope for them.

Write down your VISION LIST.

VISION LIST ________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _______ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Here’s what you will do the next day, Day 2, _________________________, think about what in your partner and your new relationship was good and beautiful. The principle here is that to seek the good and beautiful makes one good and beautiful.

Make a BEAUTIFUL LIST.

MY BEAUTIFUL LIST

On the next day, Day 3, _________________________, face the fact that memories also include painful experiences and unhappy times. We cannot just block those out. We are going to bring them out and work through them in a healthy way, and clear them up.

So, on the third day, think about your mistakes, when you caused your spouse pain, what you really regret and need to apologize for, and really feel forgiveness. Make an APOLOGY LIST to talk about next week.

MY APOLOGY LIST

So that’s this week’s plan. Close with a prayer or meditation on Jesus’ words about marriage:

From the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. 1

1 Mark 10:6-9 (Christianity)

Week 2: To Repent

First, how did it go last week? What are some of your memories you’d like to share? How did you first meet? What made you decide to marry?

Second, our memories aren’t always happy. Every couple goes through diﬃculties. The mentor couple will talk about a struggle they went through, and how they overcame it.

GOAL FOR THE COMING WEEK:

Begin by making a commitment to love your spouse through any painful memories.

Then open your heart to repent for what was bad and unhealthy. Allow yourself to feel remorse and receive forgiveness for having caused grief and pain by any failings and insensitivity toward your spouse. Discover the heart to forgive your spouse in turn.

Now let’s get into it. Pull up last week’s APOLOGY LIST. In man-woman relations, we all have erred, as did our ancestors and as does the culture around us. But we need to take personal responsibility and not blame anyone. Don’t even blame yourself. Just name the mistakes and get ready to kiss them goodbye.

Take three minutes to look through your APOLOGY LIST, see if you want to change anything, and prepare to talk about it.

(Take three minutes.)

It is for sure that the topic of sex will be on your list, probably somewhere near the top. Sex makes one flush and one flesh. But it also can tear you apart at the seams.

Be aware: all men and all women, now and in the past, have this problem. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.”

As Adam and Eve did, all people use their sex organ selfishly and feel shame about it. We strive to live completely and unreservedly for the sake of our spouse, but in the area of sex, this is impossible. That’s why we feel shame. It’s time to remove the fig leaf.

The main point is that you are going to bring this to an end.

Jesus told us that if we even look at a woman lustfully, we have already committed adultery, and that we should cast out our eye. We’re not going to be casting out our eyes, but we should be sincere about our repentance. Jesus did not describe the sin of the adulterous woman; he just said, go and sin no more. Tell your spouse that you want to make amends.

If there is an issue of sexual addiction, or addiction of any kind, those who are suﬀering with it should commit to receiving help. We’ve got to get out of the shadows. One great resource to achieve “a life without shadows” is found at highnoon.org.

The principle is that when we do something selfish, we hurt ourself and others, and we hurt God. We feel conscience-stricken and tend to suppress it, where it does us even more harm. We can remove it by naming it, reporting it to God and our spouse, asking for forgiveness from God and spouse, and making a condition for that forgiveness to take hold.

This may not be the only thing on your list. Share your list of what was bad and unhealthy. You can get into details or not. Answer each other’s questions, if there are any.

Now, share with your spouse the pain that they may have caused you.

Listen to your spouse share about this and, if necessary, go back and add them to your APOLOGY LIST.

This is leading up to what we call the Indemnity Ceremony that will begin our next week’s meeting. It will be a chance to wipe the slate clean.

ASSIGNMENT THIS WEEK: Everyday, express to your spouse repentance and forgiveness for the points on your APOLOGY LIST.

Check in with your mentor couple at least three times.

This week closes with a prayer or meditation on the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 2

2 Matthew 6:9-15 (Christianity)

Week 3: To Rediscover

First, how did it go last week? Did you find it diﬃcult, or easy, to talk about things you’re sorry about? Did it get easier as the week went on?

Second, The mentor couple will share about their experience with the indemnity ceremony and other acts of repentance and forgiveness.

FIRST STEP: THE INDEMNITY CEREMONY

The first step this week is to clear away our mistakes and misbehaviors. We call this the Indemnity Ceremony.

The root of husband-wife mistakes and misbehaviors has to do with sex. We cannot free ourselves from it in one moment, but we can draw a line in the sand. We can confess to each other and repent and forgive, and promise that our hearts are with each other forever and we will support each other through the process of healing until we fulfill our Creator’s purpose, which we call “absolute sex.”

The Blessing protects our children from this sin. It stops here with us; we do not pass it on to our children.

Here’s how we symbolize this. With a prayerful spirit, we ceremonially strike each other’s buttocks, three times, with a stick. As you deliver the three strikes, feel grateful for your spouse’s humility, and repent for your own unworthiness before God.

Receive your spouse’s striking as a gift, an opportunity to show your repentance, receive forgiveness, and go and sin no more.

Three times each, husband to wife, then wife to husband.

Having done this, husband and wife accept God’s and each other’s forgiveness and promise never to hit each other again, and to support sexual abstinence before marriage for our children.

GOAL FOR THE COMING WEEK: This week you will rediscover what is good and beautiful in each other and in your relationship.

Think of how virtue, truth and beauty come from God, and how the good, the true, and the beautiful represent God’s love for you and your couple. God is the source of all that for which you are grateful. To be grateful to your spouse is to be grateful to God.

Tomorrow, Day 1, ___________________, you will look at your MEMORY LANE LIST from the first week. If you want, you can add more memories. Then share that list with your spouse and say why they are special.

On the next day, Day 2 ___________________, you will REDISCOVER your spouse by thinking about what it was that he or she did that moved you so much that you gave your life to her or him. Don’t talk about it now; just write down words to describe your gratitude.

REDISCOVER LIST

The day after that, Day 3 ___________________, you will share what you wrote with your spouse.

The next day, Day 4 ___________________, you will write a letter to God to express your gratitude for giving you your spouse. One paragraph. Read it to your spouse as God’s representative.

LETTER OF GRATITUDE TO GOD

On the following days, tell someone else about what is good and beautiful in your spouse.

Here’s a list of people to tell; check at least one:

__ Tell your children

__ Tell your parents

__ Tell your friends

Before we finish our meeting, think up how, without touching your spouse, you can express your gratitude to him or her. It could be through a song, a poem, a present, a special meal, an evening with friends, a time of recreation or retreat, any gesture of appreciation. Make your plan now and write it here:

The principle here is that we need to always focus on the good and beautiful in our spouse, and when we focus and tell them about what we find, we discover more. They become more good and beautiful to us, and to everyone.

As a result of this week, take what is good and beautiful in your spouse and etch it into your heart.

FOR THOSE WHO MAKE PLANS

After the 40-days, you and your spouse are going to share a unique experience of love with each other over a period of three days. It is wonderful to share these three days at home, in familiar surroundings. It is also an option, if practical, to take a 4-day, 3-night vacation. If you want to do so, you can start thinking about that and planning now.

Close with a prayer or meditation on this passage from the Song of Solomon:

O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out. 3

3 Song of Solomon 1:2 (Judaism, Christianity)

Week 4: To Respect

First, how did it go last week? What did you rediscover about each other?

Second, the mentor couple will share about your most meaningful experiences in relation to God and True Parents.

GOAL FOR THE COMING WEEK: On the foundation of gratitude, develop a greater respect for your spouse. Respect your spouse as the most noble and cherished person in the world. Learn how to give ownership of your life to this person you respect and trust absolutely.

Tomorrow, Day 2, _________________________, you will list what you have learned from your spouse. (Fill in this week’s blanks with your spouse’s name.)

What I have learned from ______________________________.

The next day, Day 3, _____________________________, you will add how your spouse has made you a better person. These may connect with the points that you have learned from your spouse.

How ___________________________________ has made me a better person.

The day after that, Day 4, ___________________, you will add what you respect most in your spouse.

What I respect most in __________________________________.

TEACHING MOMENT: When we respect, we trust, and when we trust, we give ourselves. In marriage, we give ownership of ourselves to our spouse. It means to be completely in charge of our actions AND to devote them completely to the security, comfort, well-being and happiness of our spouse.

The principle here is that God is love, and love is a verb. Love means to give oneself completely to your spouse. By the principle of love, your spouse will return that love to you, plus more.

Giving love is the foundation for your marriage’s existence (your marriage vows), action (living for each other) and multiplication (children).

Ownership derives from selfless love. It means you give your spouse total ownership of your attention, your energy, your time and space. She or he has ownership of YOU and YOUR LOVE. You don’t belong to yourself anymore. St. Paul wrote that your body does not belong to you, but to your spouse. 4

This applies most of all to your most precious part—your sex organ. This part of your body is the most diﬃcult to surrender—for good reason. We surrender it ONLY in marriage. And it is what marriage is all about. We protect our sex organ for that one person.

So on Day 5, _____________________________, you will put into words your voluntary gift of yourself and your love, including your sex organ, to your spouse’s total ownership. It’s your love oﬀering.

These words express my gift of myself and my love, including my sex organ, to ________________________’s loving ownership.

4 1 Corinthians 7:4

Then on Day 6, first, you will share all you have written on Days 2 - 5 with your spouse. Then you will sign the “love oﬀering.” You will sign this in your spouse’s book, and your spouse will sign it in yours.

LOVE OFFERING

I, _____________________________, as the owner of ____________________’s love, I pledge that I will honor, cherish and protect that over which __________________ has given me ownership, that I will never misuse it or abuse my responsibility and the trust that _____________________ has in me.

SIGNED: _________________________________________ DATE: ______________________

Along with a gift of yourself and all you have to your spouse, we encourage you together to make an oﬀering to God. God has worked through the Family Federation to give you the marriage Blessing. We encourage you to send a gift to the “HSA Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.” Doing so will multiply blessings for you and others manyfold.

It’s not mandatory; it’s voluntary. You can decide the amount, or ask your mentor couple for the suggested amount. If you feel it right to do so, you can give it to your mentor couple when you meet next.

Close with a prayer or meditation on a passage from the Holy Qur’an about marriage.

Among His signs is that He created spouses for you among yourselves that you may console yourselves with them. He has planted aﬀection and mercy between you.5

5 Qur’an 30.21 (Islam)

Week 5: To Renew

First, how did it go last week? We know it’s not easy even to understand giving ownership of one’s sexual organ to one’s spouse. What is your reflection about that?

Second, the mentor couple will share their feelings about this, and also their hopes for the future.

GOAL FOR THE COMING WEEK: Identify your marital successes and strengths. Use these to renew your vision for your marriage.

TEACHING MOMENT: As to your marriage’s successes, each of you right now make a list of successes. They can be large or small, brief or longterm. They are whatever YOU consider successes from YOUR perspective. Be positive!

The principle is that we are here to bring comfort and joy to God, and God is inspired by our successes, and He knows what we went through to achieve them. We all have baggage from our own life and from our ancestors. What may come natural to one person takes a huge eﬀort for another. Whatever we achieve that grows our spirit and serves others is a good result, a success that we can report.

My list of marriage successes

Tomorrow, Day 1, _______________________________, you will share the lists. Doing so will trigger memories of more marriage successes.

On Days 2-3, _______________________________________, on the same page, you will build your combined marriage success list. Copy your spouse’s answers on your list.

Our combined list of marriage successes

Then, on Day 4, ___________________________________, you each will make a list of your marriage’s strengths. Again, these could be great or small from a worldly perspective. They are whatever YOU consider strengths from YOUR perspective.

My list of marriage strengths

Then, on Day 5, _____________________________, you will share the lists. Doing so will trigger memories of more strengths. On the same page, write those down. Write your spouse’s answers on your list.

You now will have lists of your marriage’s successes and strengths.

IDEALISM, LOVE AND HOPE: With that having been done, set those aside and remember the idealism, love and hope of your first days together. God is the eternal fountain of hope. Don’t get concrete yet—just strive for the spirit of hope based on love and the partnership that you have with each other and with God. Each write it in one sentence, “When I gave my love to you and received your love for me, I felt: _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________

On Day 6, ____________________________, you will sit down together and ask God to restore that idealism in you and your spouse. It could be at home, on a walk, in the sanctuary of a congregation you are part of, even in a coﬀee shop. God will listen anywhere.

NOTE: If you are elderly, include the eternal love you will share in the next world on your list.

Right after that, in the same place, go back in this booklet to your VISION LIST from week 1. Check that vision and revise it if necessary. If it has to be revised—for example, in areas that might be impossible, such as child-bearing or career-choice—do so. Turn your double-vision into a doable vision.

Together, mark or highlight

…visions that are pretty much the same.

…visions that are diﬀerent, but we agree to unite and support each other on.

…and visions that we can’t unite on and agree to set aside.

On Day 7, _________________________________, write up your ONE VISION LIST.

Our ONE VISION LIST

Talk about it, and in prayer, oﬀer all this to God and meditate on it or pray over it for 3 - 7 minutes.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”6

6 Jeremiah 29:11.

Week 6 (three days): To Re-determine

First, how did it go last week? What mission did you come up with? We had to work on this too, and here’s what we came up with.

Second, the mentor couple will share about the ideal of home church—that families fellowship together in homes, and the idea of tribal messiahship.

This week is the first of two short “weeks.” This one is three days long, the next is five days. You’ll see why as we proceed.

GOAL FOR THE COMING WEEK: Look at your ONE VISION LIST, and set up activities or projects that will help you fulfill them, based upon your successes and strengths from last week.

Tomorrow, Day 1, _______________________________, each of you will separately come up with some activities that would align with your vision. Physical fitness? The culinary arts? House restoration? Music and dance? Travel and tourism? Financial planning? How about spiritual activities?

LIST OF ACTIVITIES

On the next day, Day 2, _______________________________, you will compare your lists. You will check activities that are the same, activities that are diﬀerent, but you agree to unite on or permit each other for the sake of her or his growth and happiness, and activities that you can’t unite on and agree to set aside.

TEACHING MOMENT: The principle is that one God-centered vision unites two into one, and when two become one, energy is produced and the universe bends in your direction. Then to realize a vision, we need to invest that energy in concert with the universe, persevere in faith, enjoy the journey, and oﬀer the results to others.

Activities that are the same

Activities that are diﬀerent, but we agree to unite on _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________

Activities that we can’t unite on and agree to set aside _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________

The ONE SET OF ACTIVITIES LIST

On Day 3, __________________________________, put all this together and come up with a one- sentence mission statement for your marriage.

Our one-sentence mission statement for our marriage

Promise each other…

…to work together with one vision …to avoid the mistakes which you committed before, and …to build upon the successes and strengths of your marriage.

Close with a prayer or meditation on this Buddhist teaching about marriage:

Representing heaven and earth, I have created husband and wife. This is the beginning of the world. 7

7 Mikagura-uta (Tenrikyo)

Week 7 (five days): To Recreate

Introduction: The mentor couple will talk about the ideal of family church—that the family is the true place where we live with God.

The coming week: You are about the complete 40 days of working on your relationship and your self. Congratulations!

A great marriage enjoys, honors and cares for sexual love. You now will spend three days devoted to this deepest bond. To prepare, your mentor couple will walk you through the following steps.

Time: the three days following your forty days, beginning day after tomorrow.

Place: Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father.” For three consecutive days, at a time most convenient for you, you will meet in the privacy of your bedroom or other place you have prepared.

Holy Handkerchiefs and Holy Candle: The mentor couple will give to the newly blessed couple two handkerchiefs, meant for this time alone. They are color-coded with a pink spot for the wife and a blue spot for the husband. Each is infused with a drop of holy wine. They represent God’s blessing and protection of sex.

On each of the three days, husband and wife will shower or bathe separately before lovemaking, each using his or her holy handkerchief. Use it to cleanse your sex organ with the heart to welcome God home in your union that is about to take place.

Start in the spirit: Greet each other humbly in remembrance of the great commandments given by all religious and ethical teachers, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Oﬀer a prayer or positive statement of love—your own and / or one of those that was provided at the end of each meeting.

Reverently light the holy candle and bow to each other.

Then oﬀer personal prayers of gratitude and determination to live as an eternal family centered on God’s ideal for husband and wife.

Thank God for His gift of sex, which enables you to become one body with your beloved. Through your children, your sex organ is physically eternal. More than any other part of your body, its purpose is to bring joy and life. That is why it belongs to your spouse, parents and children, and you are its caretaker.

Above all, your sex organ belongs to the Creator, God, who is love.

Invite God to be with you.

Recreate through love: Now is the time to enter into the most intimate and precious relationship that only a husband and wife blessed by God may experience. The union of man and woman is sacred and joyful. Renew the purity of love by joining together in the true love of God.

Recreate the husband: The husband should humbly encourage his wife to take a leadership role in the prayer and in your sexual relationship on the first two days. He can help his wife experience a new sense of pride as God’s daughter and a heavenly wife. Most importantly, he can learn her heart about sexual love, which, as a woman, may be diﬀerent from his.

A husband’s identity as a man is strengthened by a true wife. For this reason, on the first two days of the ceremony, the husband should be beneath the wife at the consummation of the act of love.

This represents ending the pattern of men misusing women and using his strength to take advantage of women. By teaching him how to be a true husband, a true man, and a true lover, the wife is giving birth to her husband. The husband must be patient and sensitive to his wife’s cues, her tempo, her readiness.

The principle is exactly what Jesus said to Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel: that we must be born again. Nicodemus responded, does that mean I must enter my mother’s womb? Knowing that Nicodemus was not getting it, Jesus asked, “you are a teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?” The answer to Nicodemus’s question is, yes, your wife is Heaven’s bride, and she is in the position of your mother, and you do return to your mother’s womb, through sexual intercourse—to be reborn.

On the first day, the husband is reborn as a new Adam, a boy-child.

After your holy union, oﬀer a prayer of thanksgiving that by your total self-giving and self sacrifice in sexual love, you have given God ownership of your heavenly love.

On the second day, the husband is reborn as a bridegroom, like Jesus ready to become a true husband.

John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the bridegroom, and Jesus referred to himself in the same way. But Jesus had no bride, because the people—beginning with John himself, and continuing to Jesus’ family and religious community, did not recognize who he was. His mother was concerned about others’ marriages, but not her own son’s.

So, in the Book of Revelation, Jesus tells us why he will return, and that is to hold the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. It says that the Holy City will come down from Heaven adorned as a Bride, and those who attend the Marriage Supper will be blessed.

Our True Parents, Reverend and Mrs. Moon, were called by Jesus and led by the Holy Spirit to fulfill this vision. Their Blessing upon all marriages engrafts us into the Tree of Life, and qualifies us to enter the city by the gates.8

8 Revelation 22:14

How Your Wife Is Your Lord

Keep in mind, the first two days recreate the wife to occupy the position of the Lord before her husband, for, as Rev. Moon once said, “The woman’s love organ is the subject partner of all subject partners, for it controls the life of man.”9

Once again, after your holy union, oﬀer a prayer of thanksgiving that by your total self-giving and self sacrifice in sexual love, you have given God ownership of this most intimate of relationships.

Re-create the wife: The third day sees the husband reach the maturity appropriate to his responsibility as the loving head of the family. In the first two days, he has learned his wife’s heart about sexual love. To recreate her husband as a Son of God and a true husband, the wife now supports him and respectfully follows his leadership in both the prayer and the act of love. To represent this, you consummate the act of love with the husband above the wife. This recreates the husband, and also, by the power of God’s love, recreates the wife as a true wife.

On the third day, true husband-wife love is restored. From this day forward, love each other with no inhibition, freely in terms of position, and with all respect, tenderness and passion.

At the conclusion on the third day, cleanse your sexual parts with your holy handkerchiefs. Do not wash the handkerchiefs, but store them safely to represent your eternal love. They will be interred with you at the end of your life on earth, a precious token of the husband-wife love that your couple will take into eternity.

Reflect and build upon the meaning of this ceremony of love, and follow your heart and wisdom to make sexual love a most sacred and powerful experience in your marriage.

Close with a prayer or meditation on this passage from the Vedas:

I am He, You are She; I am Song, you are Verse, I am Heaven, you are Earth. We two shall here together dwell, becoming parents of children.10

9 Second Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 1182.

10 Atharva Veda 14.2.17 (Hinduism)

Closing Celebration: To Rejoice

Introduction: This is anew start for your family and the world. The number 8 represents a new start, a new beginning. So we will have a celebration to honor your new beginning.

As a blessed couple, you are the owners of love before God and each other. Let’s take some time to share about our experiences over this period of 43 days, as a blessed couple and mentor couple.

(Take time to share.)

Please ponder these words from Father Moon concerning marriage:

“God was the first Creator; Adam and Eve were to be the second creators; and the children of Adam and Eve were to be the third creators.”

This means that by our power to create children, we are like God, who created us as His children. It means that we experience and inherit God’s heart of parental love—His and Her love for us, and our love for our children.

“The foundation of God, true Adam and Eve and their children achieves the unity of God and human beings through love.”

This means that love in our marriage and family makes us one with God. The grandparents represent God, and the parents and children represent Adam and Eve and their children. Each family manifests the ideal of creation. A three-generation family is the model for the ideal world.

“It was God’s ideal of creation that this model expand not just to the level of country and world but to the entire cosmos. A country can become a family-patterned unit that is larger than the family; the world can become a family-patterned unit that is larger than a country and the cosmos can become a family-patterned unit larger than the world.”11

God created the nation, world and cosmos to operate like a family, based on the realms of heart in the family between parents and children, husband and wife, and brother and sister.

This is why the marriage Blessing from True Parents is the path to a world of peace rooted in true love.

OUR NEXT STEPS

Now we have some gifts for you. The mentor couple will give the blessed couple a small picture of True Parents, Father and Mother Moon. And they will give something for you to read for further learning and growing. 12

The holy candle and holy handkerchief from the three day ceremony are yours to keep. They represent your eternal love, life and lineage, on the earth and in the next world.

11 Pyeong Hwa Gyeong

12 Publisher’s note: We recommend True Families: Gateway to Heaven, or Peace-Loving Global Citizen, or The Peace Messages.

The mentor couple may invite you to continue your relationship with them and with other newly blessed couples (if any) who also went through this course. You can get together every week, as you have been, to support and enjoy each other.

They can introduce you to other materials that you can share in your meetings.

Most important is to share the Blessing with others, and to strive to create a true family culture that transcends race, nation and religion—one family under God.

Because world peace comes from ideal families.

Close with a prayer or meditation on Reverend Moon’s words about marriage:

“What is the purpose of marriage? It is for man and woman to center on God’s love, possess God’s love and unite. Such a union is the origin of peace and of the universe itself. Because God’s eternal love dwells where people live for others, such a family will endure forever.” 13

13 Second Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 1055 #4.