Choose the path that leads you towards your eternal home. It is admittedly narrow and arduous and you will have to muster all your strength in order not to slip onto the wide path, which certainly offers pleasures and comforts but leads you towards a different goal. And even if the path is narrow and full of hardship, a companion is always at your side Who gives you strength, supports you and guides you safely through all the dangers of life if only you call upon Him and desire His help. The wide, practicable path constantly offers comforts and relief of all kinds, and therefore it is travelled by those who want to avoid hardship and plagues and make their earthly life pleasant. But this path will never lead to the heights. The man who walks on the broad path will always and constantly cling to the earth and be in the greatest danger of ending up in the depths. The pleasures of life will occupy his whole mind, his thoughts and feelings will become shallow and he will find favour in the most earthly worthless trinkets, he will indulge in the desires of the body and be devoted to vices with all his senses. And such a way of life can never lead upwards, but must end in ruin. All the strength that God gives to man to preserve his life is wasted on completely useless endeavours, the soul envelops itself in an ever denser shell instead of dissolving it and freeing itself from the chains that bind it to earth. And this can only mean decline for the human soul but not lead to higher development, whereas the narrow path certainly leads upwards, albeit over thorns or seemingly insurmountable undergrowth. For at the end of the path the soul regocnizes the one Who is its fulfilment.... He sends His light towards it so that it does not walk in darkness but regocnizes all dangers and knows how to avoid them. He gives her strength and fortification through His figure of light, He stretches out His hands to the struggling one and supports him when he threatens to sink down. But at the end of the path the soul awaits the well-deserved rest, and this is unimaginably marvellous, that no effort and adversity of the path was too great compared to that glory, while the wanderer has already enjoyed his joys and recreations on the broad earthly path and comes away empty-handed when he has reached the goal. For he has striven for a different goal, he has never thought of the end of the path but has snatched all comforts from earthly life and now has to live in extreme hardship, for the renunciations, which are now his lot, affect him far more painfully as he greedily remembers his earthly life and can no longer fulfil his vices and desires. For he has not utilized earthly life for the good of his soul, he has not been able to overcome himself to make small sacrifices but has enjoyed it to the full. And the fulfilment of earthly life means agonizing renunciations in the afterlife, which cannot be ended arbitrarily....

Amen

This proclamation is not used in any themebook.