Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6228

6228 Fear of death....

April 4, 1955: Book 67

Every soul has to pass through the gate to eternity, no human being can turn away from this path, everyone has to exchange his stay on earth with the stay in the kingdom of the beyond.... All must discard their heavy earthly body, because only the soul enters that kingdom, but everything earthly remains on earth, even if the soul is still so strongly connected to it. Yet it can rejoice and exult on entering the kingdom of the beyond but also arrive there in utmost unhappiness, in hardship and poverty, depending on the human being's life on earth. The stay in the spiritual kingdom can also cause the most beautiful earthly life to fade, but this can also have to be exchanged for extremely dark surroundings, which the soul already feels before and therefore resists leaving the body as long as possible. Yet all people are facing this hour, and no-one can prolong his life by just one day.... the hour of departure from this earth has been foreseen since eternity, and the soul has to bow to divine law. But it has it in its own hands to shape the transition from the earthly to the spiritual kingdom gloriously, and then it will not be able to wait for the hour when it will be released from the heavy earthly garment and clothed in a spiritual garment in which it can now move freely and blissfully and offer praise and thanks to its creator and father Who has prepared this blissful fate for it. Irrevocably, every human being is called away from this earth.... and death means fear and terror for most people, they think of it with unease and do nothing to get rid of this terror.... because they don't believe but are nevertheless deeply afraid of the hour of death. And they will not get rid of this uneasiness until they seriously examine themselves, until they give themselves an account of whether and how they could survive if they had to answer for it..... A serious self-examination could cause them to change, to live according to God's will or according to what they themselves know to be right.... and their fear of the hour of death will diminish the more they work on themselves, even if they are not yet able to believe correctly. A right and righteous way of life also includes loving actions, and then the teachings of faith will no longer seem so unacceptable; the human being will occupy himself in thought with questions which previously did not touch him.... because the will to live right is already a step closer to God, in Whom it is difficult for him to believe.... Every person knows or feels what is right and just, and if he only allows himself to be guided more by his feelings, he will also learn to think differently.... he will be more concerned with his departure and the state afterwards, and he will look forward to his end more calmly, for now he will follow his inner voice more, he will act as he deems right, and he will learn to believe.... And then he will also find God before his time is over, and the hour of death will also have lost its terror for him....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers