We wish a happy 34th anniversary to the 2075 couples of the 1982 Holy Marriage Blessing!
Today we give thanks to God and True Parents for the 34th Anniversary of the Holy Blessing of 2075 couples at Madison Square Garden on July 1, 1982. On that day we made a solemn vow to honor our Heavenly Parent’s original and eternal plan for marriage, restored by the grace of God and the blood, sweat and tears of True Parents. This is a good day to remind ourselves of our binding commitments to God, True Parents, and to each other.
When we met with True Mother at Belvedere last month to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Yankee Stadium, it felt like a grand family reunion. It was moving to see so many veterans of that campaign, some with their children and grandchildren, looking forward with confidence to the bright future ahead. True Mother was moved too, and when she returned to Korea she kindly said:
“During my time in the United States, I felt the deep hearts of American elders and how they are certain of the difference between right and wrong. I’ve often heard that our American members are every bit as good as Korean members and have deeper hearts, and this time I personally felt it!”
As we begin this new month of July with fasting and prayer, we are working hard to prepare for the historic 40th Anniversary of the Washington Monument Rally. In his prophetic address on September 18, 1976, America and God’s Will, True Father uttered the memorable line, “America must rise up, today. Tomorrow may be too late!” Forty years have passed, and despite the urgent challenges facing our nation and our movement, True Mother is again encouraging us that it is still not too late. In fact this is the very time to gather the harvest that God has prepared, and to see the foundations of God’s substantial kingdom by 2020.
Congratulations again to all the 2075 Blessed Families in America and around the world!
See you in Washington!
Sincerely,
Dr. Ki Hoon Kim
Continental Director
Dr. Michael Balcomb
President
A large percentage of the American Unification movement—2,075 couples, or 4,150 persons in all—participated in a record-setting Marriage Blessing ceremony officiated by True Parents at New York’s Madison Square Garden arena. This number eclipsed the previous record of 1,800 couples married by True Parents in Seoul in 1975, which was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest mass wedding in history. The Marriage Blessing was preceded by the matching engagement of 705 couples in May 1979, 843 couples in December 1980, and 653 couples in June 1982. More than 60 percent of the couples were either interracial or intercultural. With this event, the church in America went virtually overnight from being a movement of primarily single people to one of married people.
