Clayton Brummer married Hannah Fritz at Saint Joseph Church, in Ellinwood, Kansas on Saturday, October 22nd.
Clayton is the son of Darin and Stephanie Brummer of St. John, Kansas. Hannah, the daughter of Brian and Laurie Fritz of Topeka, Kansas. Father Terrance Klein officiated.
Aynsley Appelhanz, a friend of the bride, was Maid of Honor, and Nate Kolm, a friend of the groom, was best man.
Kristen Knight served as pianist, and the vocalist was Bonita Wagner, a great aunt of the bride. Janelle Pacey, an aunt of the groom, was the lector.
For me, you will never die |
Clayton & Hannah |
Terrance Klein |
22 October 2022 St Joseph |
Clayton and Hannah, your wedding day has arrived! And here’s a beautifully romantic thought to ponder: The French existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel wrote, “To love another is to say to him or her, for me, you will not die.”
It’s an inspiring sentiment, isn’t it? Clayton, who’s quite preoccupied with this marrying business, will probably immediately offer his assent to the saying. Hannah’s still a bit more clearheaded. She might adjudge the assertion to be pure nonsense. “To love another is to say to him or her, for me, you will not die.”
Hannah would be right. Romeo and Juliet, and all the other lovers, still died. Why, Clayton and Hannah, you come from long lines of people who loved one another, or at least they fancied their partner enough to propagate. Some you remember by name; others are long forgotten. The point is, they’re all quite dead.
And let’s be honest. Lovers don’t just die. Some fall out of love. Loves wither, and relationships follow.
But there’s a truth in Marcel’s thought, one beneath its obvious falsity. Hannah and Clayton, it’s the same truth proclaimed by Saint John in the reading, which the two of you have chosen for today.
Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Saint John is proclaiming the core of our Gospel.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In Jesus Christ, the Beloved Son of the Father, who poured out his life for us on the cross and was resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, we have learned the deepest truth of the universe: “God is love.”
That means more than that God loves us, though he surely does, Clayton and Hannah. It means more than that God commands all of us to love one another, though that is also quite clear.
No, it’s deepest meaning is that God simply is love. The Father is an eternal love who pours himself out into the Son. The Son returns all that he has received, the love that he is, to the Father. Together the two of them eternally breathe forth the Holy Spirit, who simply is the love they share.
Hannah and Clayton, God created us in an act of love, and God ordered us toward love as our final fulfillment. But God has always been pure love, long before he ever set the mountains in place or hung the stars.
That’s why Gabriel Marcel wants to say, along with Saint John, that anyone who has truly known love has surely known God. Clayton you’ve sensed that Hannah didn’t happen to wander into your life. She comes to you as the gift of God. Hannah, you know that in the love, which you and Clayton share, you’ve discovered something so much the larger than yourselves.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
On a wedding day we pray that the love of the couple grows. We should also pray that it pours itself out into the sea of love that is God. That is what you are called to do, Hannah and Clayton. Each of you is to lose yourself in loving service and devotion to the other.
Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also must love one another.
Hannah and Clayton, abandon yourselves to the love we call God. That is how you will bear great fruit.
No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us,
and his love is brought to perfection in us.
If love were something we created, it would, along with us, surely die. But you see, the Gospel tells us that love created us. It’s not Clayton and Hannah who bring forth love. Love brought them forth, brought them to each other. In the resurrection of the Christ, love reveals itself as triumphant, claiming one human heart after another.
So, the clear-headed Hannah can join the heart-struck Clayton in, quite correctly, saying to each other: For me, you will never die.
♥ ♥ ♥
