Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/0343

0343 Danger of self-love.... Love for God and neighbour....

March 22, 1938: Book 8

In every time the Lord God has consolations ready for you, which He then gives you in full measure when you turn to Him in trust. Where the Lord Himself takes care of every being in this way, you experience his grace daily.... He directs your hearts steadfastly towards the Eternal when you strive only for this. But a tiny measure of self-love already weakens the great power of grace that the Lord conveys to you. For if one puts his own ego first, he will hardly enter the right way or remain on it. For love of God and of neighbor is the highest commandment that encompasses everything.... should you not first try to fulfill this commandment?....

But then you must not put yourself in the foreground.... All you have and are is given to you by God; and in the same measure you are to give back to your fellow men.... you are to consider them with all that you value yourself, before you think of yourself, and thus love your neighbor as yourself. In the same way, you also have a share in the divine grace to the same extent which the Lord attributes to you as you have equally attributed to your neighbor. Try yourselves in this highest duty; life on earth will then still offer you such incomparably beautiful things.... in that the way to the Father becomes easy for you and you, always standing in the circle of light of divine love, can form yourselves for eternity....

A short prayer for strength for all right actions will also make this commandment appear easily executable to you, and in a lively exchange of ideas with your spiritual friends, you will penetrate deeper and deeper into the love and wisdom of God, and you will learn to look at everything on earth with spiritual eyes.... The commandment of love will stimulate you to utmost activity until the end of your life, and then you have not uselessly walked the way on earth, but you have helped your soul to advance. What you have done to your neighbor in love, has already been richly rewarded to you in yourselves, so that through this you have reached a more perfect state and have earned the reward of heaven....

Amen.

Translated by Alida Pretorius