Filial Piety

Filial piety is the age-old moral principle that children show respect and honor to their parents. It is the parents’ due, for they have sacrificed and labored for their children’s sake, giving them birth, feeding them and providing them with a good start in life. Therefore, filial children do not regard it as an imposition to care for their parents in their old age. Ideally this is not regarded as a matter of duty, but as the spontaneous and natural prompting of a grateful heart.

Among Father Moon’s extensive teachings about filial piety are these: Filial should be encouraged as an enduring tradition that links the generations in an unbroken chain of lineage. Filial piety is perfected in a mature unselfish mind of the adult child who sympathizes with his parents’ difficulties and sufferings and recognizes them to be more serious then his or her own small problems. Most importantly, filial piety is a doorway to a deeper relationship with God, our divine Parent.