The Day of Victory of Love - Commemorating the ascension of Heung Jin Moon

The Day of Victory of Love, observed on January 2, commemorates the passing of Heung Jin Moon, True Parents’ second son. He was critically injured in a car accident north of Poughkeepsie, New York, on December 22, 1983, while returning with two companions to East Garden in Tarrytown, New York from the Unification Theological Seminary in Redhook, New York. Though seriously injured, his two friends survived because, according to their testimony, Heung Jin Moon swerved the car at the last moment to take the brunt of the impact himself and save them. He suffered massive head injuries and lingered in a coma for ten days before ascending at 1:15 a.m. on January 2, 1984. He was seventeen. By all accounts, he was an exemplary son. True Father described him as “the most exemplary, obedient son, with the greatest piety … the most comforting son to Mother and me.”

True Parents were out of the country at the time of the accident, conducting a series of Victory over Communism rallies in Korea. A number of spiritualists had communicated to them that December 1983 was a “very dangerous time” and that True Father “must absolutely be careful.” True Father later testified that at the last rally in Kwangju, a left-leaning city with a reputation for rebelliousness, 36 terrorists were prepared to attack but were prevented from doing so because “the auditorium was already completely packed by the time they arrived.” During True Father’s speech in Kwangju, Heung Jin Moon’s accident occurred. According to True Father, “Satan lost his condition to attack me and then turned his attention to the next best, my second son.”

Having laid down his life for his friends and standing as a substitute for his father, Heung Jin Moon occupied what True Father described as “the position of the living Jesus in the Unification Church.” While Heung Jin Moon lay in a coma, True Parents conducted a ceremony in the hospital chapel in which, on the foundation of Heung Jin Moon’s “precious sacrifice,” they called for the unity of Judaism, Christianity and the Unification Church; the unity of Korea, Japan and the United States; the unification of True Parents and their family and the members of the Unification Church, as well as all races of the world. After Heung Jin Moon’s ascension, True Parents established the Day of Victory of Love.

The Day of Victory of Love found a permanent liturgical expression in the church’s tradition of Seonghwa (“ascension and harmony”) ceremonies, which True Parents established after Heung Jin Moon’s own ascension. Unlike traditional funerals, these ceremonies were not to be gloomy or sad but “beautiful, enlightening and joyful,” using bright or light colors. True Father explained:

“In the secular world, death signifies the end of life. However, in our world, death is like a rebirth or a new birth into another world. Particularly those who give their life for the purpose of the Kingdom of Heaven and for the sake of the movement are special heroes.

For that reason, we must not make those occasions gloomy or sad or feel discouraged. … If we here on earth become very mournful and gloomy, it is like pulling the person who is going up to the heavens down to the ground. This is a birth from the second universal mother’s womb into another world, just like when a baby emerges from its first mother’s womb.

A Seonghwa ceremony is actually comparable to a wedding, when men and women get married. It’s not a sorrowful occasion at all. It’s like an insect coming out of its cocoon, getting rid of a shackle and becoming a new body and a new existence, a new entity. That’s exactly the same kind of process.

In our way of life and tradition, spirit world and physical world are one, and by our living up to that kind of ideal, we bring the two worlds together into one.”