Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/7246

7246 Habitual customs and words....

January 5, 1959: Book 77

Neither words nor outer forms are sufficient for a change of being if the heart does not give life to the words or is not involved in your actions. You humans have been given many rules and regulations, and you only ever try to comply with these rules and requirements, regardless of whether you are wholeheartedly involved or whether they are really only empty forms which you fulfil through actions that lack any attitude of your own. But such 'fulfilments' of demands will not earn you a blessing, they will not bring you a step further upwards, they will always only remain empty actions or words which are as good as not carried out or not spoken. And you should therefore be more accountable for your thinking, speaking and doing, you should observe yourselves and practice self-criticism so that your whole being does not become a template and your earthly life remains an empty run. Seek above all the truth.... Whatever it is, think about it, and then consciously adjust yourselves to it. Whether you speak or act, it will always correspond to your innermost feelings, the heart will be involved and everything will gain life through it. And then you will certainly recognize what is wrong, what is pushing at you or being pushed at you. And only then will you consciously adjust yourselves, reject the wrong, accept the right and act accordingly. But what use are words or actions that you only speak or carry out at the request of others without being clear about what you are actually saying or doing? You can well imagine that God cannot judge you according to what your heart is not involved in, that He cannot credit you for something you dutifully do without being aware of what you are doing. You may have been brought up to do such things, you may have been brought up to repeat words, and you need not be involved in them with a thought. How should God judge such words or deeds? Only once you have taken a stand your words and actions will be judged. But you will also have to answer for such deeds or words because you misuse your vitality and carelessly spend the time which is only given to you to mature your souls. And thus you must be aware of the fact that you must subject everything you receive from outside to scrutiny.... that you do not merely keep the customs from your childhood as a template and thus adopt them into your manhood, but that you should think about everything as soon as you are intellectually capable of doing so.... which, however, does not mean that your intellect alone is sufficient to decide on truth or untruth.... But for once you should consider the value of what has settled in you as a habit and only then take a stand on it yourselves. You should not be satisfied with empty words or dead actions that only gain life when the heart participates in them. Only then will you live your life consciously, only then will ever new questions arise from one question, only then will the knowledge come alive, which you also absorb mechanically, and only then can you speak of an ascent, as long as you are of good will.... You must help yourselves to life, the heart must participate everywhere, and you must abhor any form or dead words.... Then your life will not be an idle one, then you will have a success to report at the end, you will have matured and your soul will have achieved a gain for eternity....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers