Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/3607

3607 Right instruction of children.... will....

November 20, 1945: Book 46

The distance from God decreases as soon as the being voluntarily strives towards Him. The will alone is enough to come closer to Him as soon as it is serious, for God's love seizes the being in the state of free will, which uses this will in the right direction. Power flows to the being and it now also becomes active according to God's will.... the human being who has a will turned towards God is active in love. God only requires the change of will in order to then help him in his ascent upwards. For God now showers the human being with His grace.... He creates opportunities for his soul to mature, He gives him strength to work with love and is always helpfully at his side, always bearing the human being's spiritual well-being in mind, so that the soul will release itself from its last material shell. And therefore the human being's will has to be directed towards God from the beginning of his embodiment, so that his earthly life will be fully utilized and he can achieve the richest spiritual success. And therefore the human being must be given the knowledge of the highest and most perfect being to Whom his will should turn.... He must be instructed so that time will not be lost until the human being has attained the recognition of the eternal deity through his own reflection. Although it is also necessary to think through and examine the imparted knowledge, the thoughts must be directed to the spiritual realm from an early age, and this happens through instruction about God as the creator and shaper of all things.... about His will and the human being's relationship to God. The human being is then still free to decide. He can also give his will the right direction as a child, he can strive towards God and already be seized by God's love in his earliest youth, so that his upward development will proceed much more easily and he will possess greater strength of resistance in later life if the decision is required and he is to weigh up through his intellectual activity what is truth and what is error. The will, which strives towards God, also provides him with the strength to make the right decision, it provides him with the power of knowledge, for God's love will never let him go. The human being can indeed first direct his will towards God in later life, as soon as the knowledge was not imparted to him as a child, but then his struggle for truth will be more difficult and much time will have been lost which he could have used for the benefit of his soul. And therefore it is a great blessing if the children are instructed correctly, for the knowledge of both powers.... of God and His adversary.... is necessary in order to be able to decide in favour of one of the two powers. And therefore it is a crime against the youth to let them wander about in ignorance or to want to deprive them of their faith in God, the eternal creator and father, even as a child.... God certainly guides people so that they will still attain knowledge in order to be able to decide freely, yet the soul has to overcome far greater resistance and its ascent is more difficult. For the will first has to be turned towards God before the human being can receive the strength he needs in order to liberate himself from the one from Whose will he emerged and Who also placed His will, which is turned away from God, into the beings which His will called into life using the strength from God.... Only the will turned towards God reduces the distance from God and guarantees the complete bridging of the gulf which separates the being from Him due to its former apostasy from God....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers