32. Love and faith are first called 'the great lights', then love is called 'the greater light' and faith 'the lesser light'. In reference to love it is said that it will have dominion over the day, and in reference to faith that it will have dominion over the night. Because these are arcana and have become hidden, especially at this end of an epoch, in the Lord's Divine mercy let the whole subject be opened up. The reason they have become hidden, especially at this present end of an epoch, is that now is the close of the age, when love is almost non-existent, and consequently faith too, just as the Lord Himself foretold in the Gospels with these words,

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Matthew 24:29.

Here 'the sun' is used to mean love, which is 'darkened', 'the moon' faith which does not give its light, 'the stars' cognitions of faith which fall from heaven, and which are the various 'powers of the heavens'. The Most Ancient Church acknowledged no other faith than love itself; celestial angels as well do not know what faith is except faith which stems from love. Love pervades the whole of heaven, for in the heavens no other life is found except the life that belongs to love. This is the source of all happiness in heaven, a happiness so great that no aspect of it can be described or in any way captured in human concepts. People in whom this love is present love the Lord wholeheartedly. Yet they realize, say, and perceive that all love, thus all life, which belongs exclusively to love, and so all happiness, come from the Lord and nowhere else, and that they derive not one trace of love, life, and happiness from themselves. The Lord's being the source of all love was again represented by the greater light, that is, the sun, at the Transfiguration, for His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as the light, Matthew 17:2. What is inmost is meant by His face, and what emanates from the inmost by His garments. Thus His Divinity is meant by the sun or love, and His Humanity by the light or wisdom coming from love.

4730. 'And we shall see what his dreams are going to be' means that declarations concerning Him were by their reckoning false ones and were seen by them as such. This is clear from the meaning of 'dreams' as declarations, dealt with in 4682. Because these declarations seemed in their eyes to be falsities, 4726, 4729, 'dreams' here means declarations concerning Divine Truth - in particular the declaration that the Lord's Human is Divine - which in their view were false ones. The fact that they were also seen by them as falsities is meant by their saying, 'We shall see what they are going to be'. The fact that declarations concerning the Lord's Human seemed and still seem to be falsities to the adherents to faith alone may be seen from what has been stated immediately above at the end of 4729; for confirmations arising from a life of evil desires do not present themselves as anything else.

[2] A further reason why the life of evil desires leads to the confirmation of falsities is that those people do not know what heaven is or what hell is, nor also what love towards the neighbour is, and what self-love and love of the world are. If they did know what these were, indeed if they had merely the wish to know, their thoughts would be completely different. Who at the present day knows of love towards the neighbour as anything other than giving what he possesses to the poor, using his own wealth to help anyone else, and doing good to him in every possible way, irrespective of whether he is good or wicked? And because by doing this he would deprive himself of his own resources and would make himself poor and wretched, he therefore casts aside teaching concerning charity and embraces that concerning faith. Then he uses many ideas to confirm himself against charity, that is to say, the idea that he is born in sins and as a consequence cannot by himself do anything good at all; and that if he does do the works of charity or genuine piety he inevitably places merit in them. And when on the one hand he has thoughts like these, and on the other he is motivated by a life of evil desires, he associates himself with those who say that faith alone saves. In doing this he confirms himself all the more in that idea, until he is convinced that the works of charity are not necessary for salvation. Once these ideas have crystallized, he then easily accepts a new one - that because this is what a person is like the Lord has provided the means of salvation which is called faith. At length he accepts the idea that he is saved even in his final hour when he dies, provided that in confidence or trust he asks that God may be merciful to him by looking upon the Son as having suffered for his sake - giving no weight at all to what the Lord said in John 1:12-13, and in a thousand places elsewhere. So it is that faith alone has been acknowledged within Churches as the essential thing. But the reason it is not acknowledged everywhere in this way is that parish priests can gain nothing from faith alone, only from preaching about works.

[3] But if those same people had known what charity towards the neighbour really was they would never have fallen for this falsity that is taught. The fundamental requirement of charity is to act in an upright and just way in everything connected with one's duty or function. For example, if a judge punishes a wrong-doer in accordance with the laws, and does so out of zeal, he is moved by charity towards the neighbour, for he desires the reform, and so the good, of that person, as well as desiring what is good for the community and his country. He punishes him to prevent him doing further harm to the community, and so is able to love him if he is reformed - as a father loves a son whom he chastises - and in so doing loves the community and his country, which in general is his neighbour. The same applies to all other people in the duties or functions they perform. But in the Lord's Divine mercy these matters will be discussed more fully elsewhere.