International Peace Mission Movement
On the evening of June 28, 2019, nine Followers and Friends of FATHER DIVINE sat down to a second interview with Mr. Patrick Weaver, this one about an hour and half in duration. The Peace Mission segment begins at the 1:18:40 minute mark in the video above.
In this clip, Mr. Joseph N. Pilgrim debuts his inspiration “We Will Always Remember the Day,” on June 29, 1960 at the Holy Communion Banquet at Woodmont. This song has since become a Peace Mission classic. It commemorates an event 10 days before; Secular Father’s Day is celebrated in the Peace Mission as “Crusaders’ Day,” set apart to honor the Brothers’ fraternal order, and on the day memorialized in this song, FATHER and MOTHER DIVINE delighted the assembly by appearing in Their Crusader and Rosebud uniforms.
It is marvelous when the people can get the significance of what it is all about! Lots of people may merely be awakened in the vibrations, as I AM the Resurrection, but yet they may not get the significance of MY Message.
The Dispensation, the Time and the Season were praying to ME! The Dispensation, the Time and the Season — it may have been an echo, or echoed through mortality’s version — but the Dispensation, the Time and the Season, as I explained it, the Time had come that generally it was as the sap rising in the spring. It was calling for ME — the Dispensation, the Time and the Season, and not merely mortality. So that is the idea! The time warranted it; which is the same as I say, the Time will come and now is, no doubt, when it will be or would be necessary for amendments to be made to our Righteous Government Platform for improvement on it; some things to be repealed, and the like; but as time and season and necessity warrant it.
Necessity has been calling for ME! With or without a Person Necessity, not mortality; I AM not studying about mortality; Necessity has been calling for ME! Naturally the spring calls for the sap to rise in the earth in vegetation and even in man and beast. They may not say a thing, but Necessity, the time and the season of the year and the Time and Season of the Ages — the Dispensation and the Necessity — they have been calling for ME! It is Wonderful!
At times it may work through the hand of Nature. At times an appeal may be made through the Cosmic Forces of Nature. Through the nature of humanity and different manners of expression they speak to GOD — those things are calling. It is Wonderful!
Mortality has been groping in darkness and misunderstanding, beseeching and begging in groveling attitude towards GOD in the mortal versionated concept and idea concerning the Mystery, but I AM coming and answering and fulfilling the scripture! So the Mystery will be revealed when the scales of misunderstanding and the mortal version shall have been lifted from humanity and GOD reveals HIS Secrets to HIS Servants, the Prophets! I thank you.
Spoken 8 July 1943 ADFD; The New Day 31 July 1971 ADFD.
You prayed for it to come! You prayed vividly, conscientiously and sincerely, but oh, how glorious it is to realize, that which you once merely surmised, you have now come into possession of it! It came not with observation! As the sap rises in the spring, even so have I come in the hearts and lives and business and affairs of the children of men and have been enthroned therein — upon the Righteous minds of men!
Righteousness, I said, is the foundation of the Kingdom of GOD! Can you not see the Mystery? When righteousness is established in one and in all, they are there and then prepared for the coming and for the establishment of the Kingdom of GOD!
The New Day 20 September 1947 ADFD, pp. 11-12
Here’s a recent, well done short video produced for Radnor Stuido 21 Public Access TV by someone who attended the annual Woodmont Trek held last Saturday (February 16, 2019).
NOTE: the questions raised by the visitor at the beginning are not in fact, as he asserts, without answers. Firstly, Woodmont was not purchased by a single wealthy Follower and donated to FATHER DIVINE. Woodmont was purchased collectively by Palace Mission Church and has since then always been collective Church property. FATHER and MOTHER DIVINE held no significant Personal property. The Peace Mission was built as a democratic cooperative comprised of six Church organizations (each of which once had many Extensions). Today, three of those six Churches remain operational. As always, each of them is governed in all practical, administrative matters by a democratically elected Board of Officers and Trustees, which for each of the three include standard offices of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer. These Officers are elected by Church Members on an annual basis. The Churches’ operating budgets today are a legacy of past prudence, and when one considers the fact that the Peace Mission operated hundreds of successful businesses and owned or still owns prime real estate, there is really no “mystery” about funding. It was and remains true that the Peace Mission does not solicit or accept donations. Followers do not experience FATHER and MOTHER DIVINE as an absence, but as an Eternal Presence, and within a democratic economic cooperative governed by THEIR Mind and Spirit, there is no need for clergy or embodied spiritual leaders. The Peace Mission is egalitarian and does not recognize clergy. As it always was, the Peace Mission is truly a democracy under GOD, FATHER DIVINE. This Teaching has always proclaimed the EVER-PRESENCE and UNIVERSAL DIRECT ACCESSIBILITY of GOD, Who is the Source of All Guidance and the Answer to Every Problem.