Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6816

6816 Life and death.... abusing the life force....

April 27, 1957: Book 73

Life alone can make you happy, but death will eternally remain an agonizing state for you, for 'life and death' does not mean physical life and its ending but the state your soul is already in on earth and certainly then in the spiritual kingdom.... which can therefore be called 'life' or also 'death', depending on the state or maturity the soul is in. Life is a state of activity, in full possession of strength and light.... Death, on the other hand, is a persistence in inactivity, because the soul lacks all strength but nevertheless feels its state as agony, just as 'life' makes the soul happy and its bliss increases the more active it is. But you will only be aware of true life and true death after the earthly death of the body, when you either receive unlimited strength or can also realize in horror that you lack all strength which you were previously still able to use for vitality. Only then will you know how meaningful earthly life as a human being is or was for every soul, and you will be blissful or feel deep remorse, depending on your earthly way of life, which has brought you to your present state. But you were created for life, and even though you have fallen into the state of death God's efforts will not cease to give you life again because He wants you to enter the state of bliss again which was granted to you in the beginning. He Himself is life, He is strength and light which are constantly active, and nothing dead could ever exist next to Him if His strength and light shone through it.... Yet even the dead once came forth from Him as a living being and was therefore able to freely determine itself.... and thus could also reject the animating strength and fall into the state of death without being prevented by God. But now it can no longer dwell in the vicinity of 'eternal life' either, it has completely isolated itself from the source of strength and thus deprived itself of life. But eternal life Itself seeks access to the dead again and again in order to breathe life into it too, so that it can be active again for its own happiness, for in the state of death it is condemned to inactivity. As a human being on earth it is temporarily supplied with vitality which, however, cannot be compared to the strength which makes the being happy in the spiritual kingdom.... But the right use of vitality also allows the soul to gain possession of spiritual strength, which only guarantees true life and is therefore inconceivably blissful. Thus the human being's available vitality is a gift of grace which cannot be valued highly enough, for it is the means to acquire the spiritual strength which then guarantees eternal life, a state where the being can act according to its own will, where it nevertheless uses its strength in accordance with God's will, where it can stay close to Him because it is constantly permeated by God's strength of love.... But if the human being misuses the strength of life given to him by only using it in a purely earthly way, the still dead soul will not come to life either, and when it departs from this earth, when the strength of life is withdrawn from it again, it will fall into a state of complete lifelessness and powerlessness, and it will remain in this state for an infinitely long time because it cannot be forcibly awakened to life and thus its free will also determines the duration of death. And yet, God does not abandon it to its fate, but He also brings these dead souls together again and again with living souls.... or also: All living beings are constantly active to also give life to the dead, and the agonizing state nevertheless causes isolated souls again and again to let themselves be illuminated by God's strength of love, which those souls wanting to help now convey to the dead. But only life means bliss, and life requires strength and light.... And if the dead is to come to life then strength and light must be imparted to it, and it must accept strength and light of its own free will, otherwise it will be and remain wretched until it once gives up its resistance....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers