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Blessing

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Definition. In Unification theology, the Blessing (capitalized) is the central sacrament: a marriage ceremony conducted by the True Parents (or by their authorized representatives) that effects a change of blood lineage — engrafting the couple, and through them their children, into the lineage of the True Parents and thus of God.

Expanded. The Blessing is theologically distinct from civil or religious marriage in other traditions. Per Hendricks’s framing (is-this-a-church):

  • It is the sacrament that makes the community of blessed couples the body and bride of Christ (in UC reading, the body and bride of True Parents).
  • It is the mechanism of physical rebirth — paralleling Christian baptism as spiritual rebirth, but operating on the lineage rather than the spirit alone.
  • It is the load-bearing rite that justifies calling the UC community a “church” in the theological sense.

Hendricks’s pointed internal critique (clear-differentiation): the UC over a roughly fifteen-year period (mid-1990s through mid-2000s) bestowed the Blessing on “uncounted millions of people” without sincere education and family ministry in place — and the church “need[s] to repent to God, True Parents and all of those people” for this.

The Blessing is also the eschatological hinge: when the Word and Blessing are fulfilled universally, the UC as a distinct institution dissolves into the human race (per uc-is-properly-a-church-via-blessed-couples).

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