Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/5787

5787 Stimulating an unbeliever to love work....

October 12, 1953: Book 63

The unbeliever cannot be given spiritual knowledge because he rejects everything that cannot be proven but only demands faith. But he can be stimulated to work with love, because he can only attain faith on the path of love. An unbeliever's heart need not be hardened so that he will therefore very well perform works of neighbourly love if he is made aware of his fellow human being's adversity, if he is encouraged by a well-meaning fellow human being to contribute towards the alleviation of this adversity.... if an appeal is made to his compassion, to his willingness to help and his earthly situation which makes it possible for him to help.... It is the greatest merit of a person who lives in love himself to spur his fellow human being into loving activity, for this can then also result in faith which, without love, is nevertheless only a dead faith and thus not much more valuable than unbelief. As long as a person passes by his fellow human being's adversity he can also be regarded as unbelieving, even though he calls himself believing. Only when a person's will to give breaks through, when he seeks to make his fellow human being happy or to avert suffering from him.... when he wants to help.... he is also able to listen to knowledge offered to him and to take a stand on it, and only then is it possible to revive in him a belief in a spiritual kingdom which exists outside the earthly kingdom....

Therefore it is a futile labour of love to try to convince an unbelieving person intellectually, that is, to present spiritual knowledge to him and persuade him to accept it, because a person without love is not capable of doing so. On the other hand, the divine teaching of love can be presented to him and its effect made credible if such a life of love is exemplified to him and his heart is also appealed to to participate in alleviating his fellow human being's hardship.... if he is first encouraged to give away his abundance until he then finds happiness himself in doing good.... And then he is also already won, then his resistance to spiritual knowledge becomes less and less, he is shaken in his unbelief.... he begins to think about his life and more willingly accepts what requires faith.... he will learn to believe because he has now become capable of it through love....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers