Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/1030

1030 Childlike relationship.... form prayer.... language of the heart....

July 30, 1939: Book 19

Anyone who feels called to serve the lord and constantly asks for His grace is approached by the lord in every way, for he testifies to his will to work for God and thus also draws God's love through his will. And in prayer for strength he confesses his weakness before the lord, and his relationship with God is that of a child.... and the father in heaven asks for nothing more. Not for a single moment in his life on earth does such a child consider himself arrogant. With a humble and loving heart he is grateful to the father in heaven for every gift of grace and therefore remains a true child before God, Who protects him from every spiritual decline.... For once someone has entered into this right relationship with Him, he can no longer go astray, i.e. be spiritually arrogant towards the father in heaven. For through his humble plea for God's grace he attains wisdom, and all wisdom makes him regocnize the greatness of the father in heaven more and more and makes him ever more humble and desirous of love. And therefore all spiritual knowledge, all higher development and attainment of the state of perfection always has the human being's childlike relationship with the father as a prerequisite, and prayer in spirit and in truth is in turn the visible sign that the earthly child has entered into this relationship with the father. Yet the lord pays no attention to formal prayers, for they kill any feeling of love.... He cannot pray in spirit and in truth who uses prescribed words which do not come from the bottom of his heart, for they do not reflect his own thinking but the thinking of others.... The human being should express himself to the father in the most intimate bond with Him as his heart feels, he should truly regard the father as father and come to Him with all his little worries and concerns, and precisely this intimate contact (with the father) will trigger true devotion, and such a prayer will not be a mere form.... For God gave people the intellect for this purpose, that they should be active themselves and send their spirit upwards. If man makes use of a form, his heart does not speak to the father, but he again only fulfils a duty imposed on him, and this prayer cannot have the right value before God, since the father wants to be called upon as father and hear the voice of His child in the most childlike way.... simply, intimately and fully trusting in the love and omnipotence of the one to Whom the prayer is addressed....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers