I Appeal to You
... through Bertha Dudde  - 04.08.1953 

5738   Spiritual progress through self-denial ....

Achieving a considerable advancement in your spiritual growth also demands a considerable amount of self-denial, a strong will and firm faith. You will hardly make progress if you don’t eagerly strive for it, if you conduct yourselves indifferently when you actually should fight, be it against your own cravings or against everything that obstructs your soul’s maturing, you must always bear the goal in mind in order to spur yourselves into constant struggling and striving, you must not deceive yourselves by estimating yourselves higher than your maturity of soul permits, you must be severely critical of yourselves, since only when you have recognised your faults and weaknesses will you tackle them. This requires a strong will, but it will always be strengthened through calling upon Jesus Christ, for this reason you also need to have a strong faith at your disposal. You can achieve anything with His help, including great spiritual progress, rising above yourselves and constant increase of your strength of love, which then will also accomplish whatever you strive for. Yet you will not take a single step forward without struggle, without loving activity and without prayer .... For loving activity and prayer guarantee your union with God and thus an already large advancement upwards, because coming closer to God is the goal you are intended to reach, so that every battle will subsequently become easier and always result in victory. What you yourselves cannot possibly achieve becomes possible through loving activity and prayer .... And therefore you will always have these two fail-safe means if you are serious about achieving spiritual progress, you need only muster the will to turn to God in prayer and attain His love through loving activity .... In that case you will not go short, then you can be certain of success and only your depth of faith determines how long it will take to reach your goal .... And you need only appeal to Jesus Christ to strengthen your faith and will, you need only avail yourselves of the blessings of His act of Salvation, which will remedy every weakness and also promise success. For He gives strength to all those who call upon Him because they believe in Him ....

Amen