Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/2928

2928 Striving for perfection....

October 16, 1943: Book 37

The imperfect denies itself access to God, and it cannot eternally attain the vision of God if it does not strive to shed its imperfection and assimilate itself to the perfect being of God. Nor can it receive the emanations of God as long as it does not open itself to these emanations in the realization of its imperfect state in order to remedy it. Striving for perfection is the first condition for achieving it; however, man will only strive when he recognizes himself as an imperfect being.... But people lack this knowledge because they no longer want to acknowledge a supremely perfect being, because they can no longer reconcile such a being, the eternal deity, with their thinking and because they have no contact with this supremely perfect being. Even if they speak of God and claim to believe in Him, they still have no real concept of His greatness and perfection because they have not yet seriously considered how small they are compared to their creator and how incomparably sublime the supreme being is, Who has all power at His disposal in heaven and on earth. An inner contemplation of this, a contemplation of the evidence of divine love, wisdom and omnipotence, which is presented to man in every work of creation, first gives him an inkling of his own inadequacy, because only then does he become aware of God's perfection. And only then does the human being start to strive when this realization moves him, when he longs to make the highest and most perfect being inclined towards himself, when he wants to gain His love and pleasure and now makes an effort to become perfect. For only a conscious striving allows him to mature. Only then does the distance from God diminish, the human being recognizes himself as a creature of the most perfect being, which was originally perfect as well and whose final goal is the original state again, he knows that his apostasy from God has also brought him imperfection; and he also knows that the return to God can only take place in a state of perfection, that only this brings him close to God and that he can only attain the vision of God through perfection, because the union with God requires an assimilation to the highest and most perfect being....

amen

Translated by Doris Boekers