Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/4709

4709 Love power of the soul.... perfection....

August 10, 1949: Book 54

The strength for the soul's development is love.... Where love is present in the heart the soul will also turn to spiritual things, it will lead an inner life and not only pay attention to the world, although the human being lives in the midst of the world and has to meet its requirements because the task he is given demands it. Nevertheless, the human being can shape his inner life spiritually, it does not need to be affected by the world's gears. His inner life can be led completely separately and therefore also a soul can mature whose body cannot separate itself from the world, indeed, its merit will be far greater, for the temptations are also greater which want to hold such a soul back from spiritual striving. Yet love is its strength.... A person who is willing to love unfolds within himself what unites him with God, and then God's love draws him upwards, for love is the bond which is unbreakable and intimately ties the soul to God. A soul that is able to love will not get lost, for through love it detaches itself from God's adversary, whose emblem is unkindness and who loses all power over a loving soul. Love is the good, the soft in the human being, which drives him to always act, think and speak well and to help his fellow human being in every adversity. Love will therefore ennoble the human being, it will turn all bad instincts into the opposite, it will shape the human being into the divine image as which he was created in the beginning, because love let him come into being and only good can emerge from love. Such a being created by God's love could only be changed by unkindness, and this was the work of God's adversary who, however, did not have a determining effect on the being but only tempted it.... And the being succumbed to the temptation of its own free will.... The love in it grew cold and thereby it fell into the abyss.... it became imperfect and had to accept all the consequences of imperfection. And thus it also became powerless, because love is the only strength which enables the being to create and work. The being is in a struggling state as long as it is without love.... As soon as love fills its being again, it is also filled with strength and succeeds in everything it wants.... And thus it will also reach the former height again, the state of light and strength and in proximity to God, if only it develops love within itself, because then it will not lack strength, because then it will unite with God again, Who is love and the eternal source of strength Himself, from Whom a perfect being is now constantly fed. Only love makes the being happy, for only love leads to God....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers