Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/0735

0735 Value of the work of redemption.... the suffering of Jesus earthly....

January 5, 1939: Book 15

Realize how helplessly an earthly child would be exposed to the power of evil if the divine saviour had not broken the power of death in His love.... And how hopeless all endeavour on earth would be without the lord's work of redemption. Out of the night of darkness the soul finds the light in faith in the divine saviour; it chooses of its own accord the path that leads to the bright shaping of its being.... And divine love must inevitably permeate the soul when it remembers the saviour and all the suffering and pain through which the saviour passed for sinful humanity. God's love is infinite, and in the realization of this love alone is the sacrifice understandable that the lord made for people on earth and all beings in the universe.... What the lord has done for mankind has become a blessing for each individual, and the whole universe stands in the light of truth through the work of God's love for mankind. The earth was destined to be the bearer of the eternal deity in earthly embodiment. And therefore an earthly child, who is in full faith, can redeem itself as long as it still dwells on earth, if only it is able to love the divine saviour with all sincerity of heart.... for love alone overcomes death.... Love alone liberates the soul from the shackles of matter, and in love for the divine saviour the earthly child willingly submits to the heavenly father and gratefully accepts the graces of the work of redemption from His hand. However, as a person still living on earth, he is not able to recognize the full depth and significance of the greatest act of grace since the beginning of the world.... He certainly knows that the father's love for His children has sacrificed Himself for them, and he therefore also knows that without the divine work of redemption the human being would have been irredeemably doomed to eternal death, and yet this knowledge cannot even begin to shed light on the significance of Christ's incarnation for the whole of God's work of creation, and it is even more difficult to penetrate Jesus' suffering and death on the cross without this knowledge of God's immense love. Therefore, even he will not be able to fathom what a sense of sacrifice had to come alive in a human being and how unspeakably the saviour suffered as a result, since His body was also human like all earthly beings for whom the divine saviour took upon Himself the greatest sacrifice. He was in unspeakable emotional distress, and only the deepest love for humanity gave Him the strength to allow the earthly body to taste all torments and sufferings, and thus the work of redemption was an overcoming of death and its power insofar as the deity did not allow Jesus to suffer above ground, but the earthly man, Who certainly harboured the eternal deity in Himself but, feeling completely earthly, took upon Himself the unspeakable suffering of the death on the cross and thus truly overcame death, so that the horror of death was taken away from all those who believe in the redeemer, love Him with all their heart and ask for forgiveness of their sins....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers