Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6646

6646 Human responsibility.... free will....

September 16, 1956: Book 71

You have to take the last step towards perfection in earthly life of your own free will.... Until then you were guided and could not go any other way since you were subject to the law of compulsion, thus you had to carry out everything God determined, whereas now in earthly life God's will is indeed revealed to you but you have to fulfil it completely freely out of yourselves and therefore can also live your life contrary to His will. Thus it is, as it were, given into your own hands what you achieve in earthly life.... And this is a great responsibility for you, for your 'thinking self', which determines your will and actions. But precisely for this reason your perfection is often called into question because you do not respect God's will but let your own will prevail which is opposed to divine will. And yet, everything depends on this short earthly time, for the life afterwards will be in accordance with this earthly lifetime. It can be immeasurably beautiful, a life of eternal bliss, but also immeasurably agonizing when the dark kingdom receives the soul after the death of the body.... And you decide that for yourselves.... As infinitely great as God's love for His creatures is, He nevertheless cannot turn away a fate from them which they have created for themselves in free will.... He cannot influence the human being against his will because perfection would then also be impossible.... He can only ever admonish and warn through His word, but still leaving it up to the human being whether he heeds the divine word at all, whether he follows it. But it is only an exceedingly short time compared to eternity, which the human being should, however, evaluate differently than he does.... Yet the freedom of his will, which he has regained after an infinitely long time of bondage, he very often abuses and yet he cannot be prevented from doing so.... He could reach the highest perfection on earth, for nothing more is required of him than: to overcome his self-love so that he would then be compensated a thousand fold in the kingdom of light and glory for what he sacrificed in earthly life.... He only needed to give very little in order to receive an infinite amount.... But he does not want to believe this and thus enjoys it beforehand. And thus he is content with pleasures which cannot in the least outweigh what he forfeited.... But he cannot be prevented from doing so, for free will is not taken away from him, precisely because it is meant to prove itself, because the human being alone has to decide how to evaluate his earthly life.... He can only be guided, everything can only be presented to him and he can be helped by indications, but it must be left up to him what benefit he derives from his guidance of destiny.... And that God takes care of every human being with love, that He makes it easy for him and offers him all possibilities, that is truly without doubt because He loves all His creations and wants to win them back. But He will never forcibly try to influence people, and therefore there is a great danger that people will fail in their last test of earthly life.... And yet, no human being can say that he did not have the strength for this, for it is abundantly available to every person but it has to be requested or acquired through prayer and activity of love. Prayer, however, presupposes faith in God and loving activity presupposes a change in his self-love.... The human being can do both, for he has the ability to do so within himself, and he only needs to want to, then he will be supported by God in every way. His strength would be increased and a light would also be kindled in him.... But where the will is absent there is no hope, and earthly life has been put back without result. The body has been abundantly provided for but the soul has remained as it was in the beginning of its embodiment as a human being.... Heavenly bliss, which lasts forever, has been forfeited for the sake of worthless goods. And the soul must continue to go through hardship and misery and perhaps also cover its entire course of development once again.... but the human being's will has determined this fate itself....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers