Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/3975

3975 Changed living conditions.... Worldly-minded people....

February 13, 1947: Book 49

Entirely worldly orientated thinking will hardly adapt to the changing situations of life and will only continue to attend to its physical improvement, and this will stop the human being from working at improving his soul. Anyone who allows matter to become his master will never be able to overcome it, and anyone who does not use the loss of material possessions as an aid in overcoming them will strive with increased eagerness to increase them again, and if he is to be helped again it can only happen through renewed loss, so that he will learn to recognise the fleeting nature of matter and derive psychological benefit from it. However, all faith will also fall prey to increased earthly striving, and for this reason alone different camps will develop which are externally recognisable. Faithful people accept their difficult earthly situation as a Godsend and are therefore not interested in increasing their earthly goods, whereas a person striving for possessions has lost faith in a Power that wants to reveal Itself through events which cause him material loss. His desire for the world dominates and thus he does not recognise God nor arrange his life in accordance with His will.

And thus a very busy time of activity will commence when people will want to improve their situation which has become extraordinarily difficult due to God's will. And then a person's way of thinking will become evident.... the loving person will help his fellow human being by making his life bearable, yet the heartless person will only want to rearrange his own life, he will do anything to provide himself with a good living standard again and not shy away from accomplishing it at his neighbour's expense. And it will soon become clearly apparent with whose support he works, who provides him with the energy for earthly activity and has taken possession of his soul in return. The believer, however, will also find help in every adversity, it just will not be externally visible, but God's strength will inundate him, he will also master every situation in life and always remain in contact with God, his faith will deepen, his love for matter diminish, and this means far greater progress than the increased earthly wealth of the former. For anyone who sells his soul for the sake of earthly life only takes the short time on earth into consideration, which can be over for him at any time. And he fails to think of eternity which will be incredibly painful for him because he will be bound by matter in the same way as on earth. And therefore the human being should try to detach himself from all desire for it, he should accept the difficult time in submission to God's will and join God even more closely the more helpless he is in an earthly respect.... For God will help him and reveal Himself to him through often miraculous help.... And the time of affliction will only be short for him, but infinitely long will be his life in the spiritual kingdom where he, liberated from all matter, will be indescribably happy because he had already become a conqueror of matter on earth....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna