Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/1478

1478 Earthly hardship.... violent intervention.... living faith....

June 18, 1940: Book 24

Without a violent intervention it is no longer possible for people to turn back, for their thoughts and intentions are directed towards the wrong goal and their spirit of God is therefore gagged so that it is almost impossible to regocnize the endangered situation. Thus they can no longer rise up by their own strength, they lie bound on the ground and need some kind of help, and this can only be offered to them in such a way that they are enlightened in a flash that they have taken the wrong path. And for this to happen, people's thinking must be forcibly torn from its usual path, they must be confronted by forces they had not previously reckoned with and it must be made clear to them what a helpless, powerless creature man is when God withdraws His help from him. They must be forced into a situation where they take refuge in prayer so that they can then be offered noticeable help and can find faith and trust in God if only they are willing. For otherwise they will not find their way back to faith, and God therefore still tries to change human thinking in this way. Only a situation which, from a human point of view, is hopeless, makes the human being think of a higher being, if he has denied such thoughts so far. However, in many cases even this world-shaking event will be unsuccessful in spiritual terms. The completely hardened earthly human being will not regocnize any divine providence in it, he will accept it without changing his attitude towards God in the slightest.... he will, if he still regocnizes God, curse Him because of the apparent injustice or completely deny divinity, and for these there is no other way of salvation, they are completely lost for eternal times.... Thus no compulsion whatsoever is exerted on people's thinking, instead they are only guided towards the right way of thinking through extraordinary horrors and suffering and it is entirely up to them to take an affirmative or negative attitude towards God, yet the slightest will towards God earns them increased willpower so that they can very well carry out the spiritual ascent if only the thought of God comes alive in them and they request and hope for strength from God. The lord pays attention to the slightest stirring of the heart and is ready with His gift of grace. It is therefore made easy, so to speak, for people to regain faith in God, but the horrors and suffering must help to make people compliant, for then the resistance against God is not as great as with a completely unbending, stubborn person who only sees himself and his earthly advantage threatened by divine intervention and rebels against the power that has such authority. But God especially seeks to come to the aid of those whose divine service has so far only been formal and who lack any inwardness. He wants to help them to find the inner connection with the highest being, He wants them to surrender to Him in all intimacy, that they prove their hitherto outwardly known faith anew by seeking refuge with Him Whom they have not yet fully regocnized. He therefore now gives them the opportunity to experience inwardly and put into practice what they had previously outwardly advocated; He therefore wants to shape their faith into a living one in order to let them now also get to know the strength of such faith. He wants them to join themselves intimately to their father in heaven, Whom they have only ever called upon in empty words. God wants to be called upon in spirit and in truth, and this adversity on earth will lead many people to turn in spirit and in truth to the one Who alone can bring help. And then the earthly disaster will have become a blessing for them, for they will have made contact with their creator and He will never let them go.... He guides their thoughts to the right realization and leads them through the night to the light....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers