Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6158

6158 Change of nature only from within....

January 8, 1955: Book 66

Nothing external has a beneficial effect on your inner life, no formalities can help your soul to mature and lead it to perfection.... Your change of nature can only be accomplished from within, this is why you humans must frequently withdraw into solitude in order to take stock of yourselves and remove whatever is spoiling you, whatever imperfections you still harbour within yourselves.... External sources can certainly draw your attention to conducting this psychological work, you can be taught how to achieve it, what you ought to observe.... what you must avoid because it is harmful and what you should do to become perfect.... but you must accomplish it yourselves and only by means of detaching yourselves from everything external even if you are in the midst of the world and forced to fulfil your duties. Yet this psychological work has to be carried out simultaneously because it is entirely independent of your occupation, for it concerns your inner nature, your faults and bad habits, it concerns the human being's inner life, his thinking, volition and conduct which.... even if it is directed in a worldly way.... ought to emanate love, otherwise a transformation of personality cannot be spoken of.

Hence your psychological work has to consist of refining your thinking and inclinations and of directing them towards divine goals; you always have to make an effort to live a life of unselfishness, selflessness, gentleness and patience, of peacefulness.... You have to develop all good qualities within yourselves and expel bad thoughts and attributes.... And all this requires the sincere will to live correctly before God.... It need not become outwardly obvious, that is, it should not be outwardly displayed.... yet a life in accordance with God's will also always affects your fellow human beings, it stimulates imitation and will always be more effective than many speeches or formal customs which do not yet vouch for an inner change of attitude.

A person can only change if he takes serious stock of himself by thinking about his shortcomings and faults and resolves to improve himself. And this inner change has to be undertaken by every person himself if he wants to reach his goal of becoming perfect. The resolve also has to be followed by the deed or the will is not in earnest.... And from this you can realise again that the attainment of beatitude is not determined by the denomination but only ever by the human being's will to kindle love within himself which totally transforms him, which turns all bad attributes into good ones and which therefore is the only means of becoming perfect.... but which can be practised by all people, irrespective of which denomination they belong to.... All denominations, however, teach love.... this is why all of them can lead to perfection, yet no denomination can guarantee this perfection.... only the human being can achieve it by the serious work of improving himself....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna