Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/0470

0470 Death in the lord.... mourning.... poor souls - prayer....

June 17, 1938: Book 10

A blessed death is to fall asleep in the lord and to awaken in the beyond in fullness of light.... What you are given in life will be much easier to bear if you accept it with a view to eternity, for then you live, as it were, only for this.... also know that all suffering will come to an end in a short time if you measure it against eternity.... but that you may enjoy the fruits of this suffering for an eternity. And so you should always take comfort in the fact that your end can be a blissful one and that your entry into the heavenly kingdom will be even more blissful. So you bury your dead and weep for them, and yet this day should be a day of inner joy for you if you consider that the soul has only exchanged this earthly life for a far more beautiful one, that the human being has stripped away all suffering and now enters a new life carefree and redeemed from all suffering, which outshines all earthly things in beauty and happiness.... Why then do you want to mourn? So try to attain such a fate in the beyond already on earth, try to detach yourselves from everything that binds you to the world and you will easily be able to depart from this earth.... But whoever loves the earth too much will also find it very difficult to part from it.... he does not want to part with the goods of this world, his heart is all too attached to earthly things. And this person will not find a place prepared for him over there either, where he can continue the good life of earth. He has neglected to work for such a life in earthly life and must now serve for a long time before he is worthy of happiness in the beyond. There the human being then has the right to mourn such a soul.... but not that it has departed from earth, but only that the soul must now agonize unspeakably in order to become partaker of what it should acquire on earth.... Pray for this soul.... give them your strength through prayer, which they so urgently need.... Whoever truly loves such a soul will be able to save it through this love, for love will be constantly active for such poor souls who did not recognize their life correctly and now have to live in want until they are redeemed from their guilt. The lord's care applies to you incessantly, so let your care also be given to those who are grateful to you from the bottom of their hearts for every help.... Bear in mind that they, too, were erring people who, having been led onto the right path, struggle and fight in order to finally enter the kingdom of light.... But you, who still walk on earth, use this time wisely and only ever long for the lord, so that you will not taste death but live for eternity....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers