I thought of Jesus’ warning about the end of the age, how as times grow dark and people feel more keenly pressed, love will grow rare. “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom … Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold” (Matthew 24:7, 12). These are trying times, for all of us. I venture we will see even more trying times. But Auden was right. We must love one another, or die.

Because love is what we are created for; it is the reason for our existence. Love is our destiny. Love God and love one another — these are the two great commands upon the human race. The secret to life is this we are here in order to learn how to love.

It’s really quite an epiphany when the truth finally strikes home. It might be the most liberating realization we ever come to. We are here in order to learn how to love. It is our greatest mission of all, our destiny.

Though it is the most basic of truths, this epiphany seems to come to few of us — or rather, seems to be accepted by few of us. Most people remain committed to other things as their primary aim in life — happiness, survival, revenge, success, what have you. When a soul comes to accept the fact that they are here to learn how to love, that the course they have been enrolled in is Learning to Love 101, it is as if the sun has just dawned for the first time in their life. All these years they have lived underground and now they have just stepped out into the open air.

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