MEDITATION

Thank you Alberto for the French text of the speech, and thank you Joris for providing a translation in English.

You know, Laurent and Claire, that I like the church; you know that. I am very happy to be here with you, with Cardinal Danneels, his brothers the priests, as witnesses of your love, for you Laurent, for you Claire.

Laurent, you are the last 'chicken to leave the nest', after Astrid and Philippe. I salute Laurent like a brother, with affection, your dear mother Paola and your father Albert, and also Astrid who isn't here. We are all with her, she is expecting a little one. And also Philippe. Claire, you are also leaving the nest, I salute your dear parents Nicole and Nicholas, and also Joanna, and also Matthew.

Cardinal Danneels has allowed me a short meditation.

I would like to say to you that your family is the 'court', the 'court' of your life. The family is the smallest, biggest, the most noble, the most ancient, the newest cell. You are founding one today, Claire and Laurent. You share friendship with many of the people who have come here, not only because of the protocol, but to tell you how much they love you both. Claire and Laurent, treasure your friends carefully. They are the greatest possession you can have next to your family. True friends will always stay with you especially when things are not going well.

Laurent, thanks for your friendship that is seven years old now. You wanted to offer me a prize for my thugs, and unfortunately there are not only French thugs; it is also true for the Belgian youth who behaves badly and whom we receive at our farm. It is right there that our friendship was born and where you have come to. I see in you an image of a prince who cares for boars, caresses the lama. You really love all animals created, from lady-birds to an elephant; yes, I have seen your living presence from nearby. I have appreciated that you don't judge my youth and that you don't ask them from which prison they come, nor what they have done. They love you a lot. Royal Highness, not, for them that doesn't mean anything, but you have been a prince for us, Laurent, in the sense that you have humbly served them, , dans la mesure où tu les a servis, humblement, brotherly. With Claire you share your love for animals.

Claire and Laurent, the most beautiful adventure in the world is the love you have given in the hands of Cardinal Danneels and all those present here; you can possess all the titles in the world, all the money in the world, but if you haven't got love, you are nothing. The most beautiful adventure in the world, Laurent and Cliare, is this 'yes' that you will give each other within a short time. It is a battle. Ask Paola and Albert, ask Nicholas and Nicole, you will see, and then ask Astrid and Lorenz, and Philippe and Mathilde, and Joanna and her husband. Ask them, it is a battle, always a magnificent battle and you will win it. When it will give a meeting in fifty years, I will be as old as 127! On two conditions, Laurent and Claire, on two conditions.

During the magnificent preparation to this wedding, I told you, it is the two of you that matters. I often hear couples talking about children, but the two of you come first. I am the third of a poor family of fifteen, fifteen children. The love we had for our father and our mother, yes, but also the love they had for each other. Rock of your life, it is the love that you will have for each other. For me as a priest, only the love I received of one man and one woman, my father and my mother, counts, my mother who breathed her last in my arms some months ago. The two of you come first; the duties of your position will take a lot of your time, your work as surveyor also, but the two of you come first. Love your difference, love the fact that the other is different. Don't forget, respect each other infinitely; respect is the most beautiful name of love. I already know your universal 'court'. May your gate be open in all four directions of the wind of love, may the smallest be served first. It is there, Laruent and Claire, where you will truly be a prince and princess.

Finally your children will be the shepherd-stars of your lifes. Give them the values you received from your parents. Give them the values, strictly secular at first, universal. We don't need to be a Christian to cherish values, deeply secular values of respect, of tolerance, love for each other. Give them religious and moral values you have received when you were small. Love them, and don't let your work devour you. We will never get back the love we haven't given to them when they were so small in the nest, so fragile and I can tell you something about it because of my profession as a specialist in education.

Finally to you, media, that has come here to honor this love, to value the love. This image you transmit into the 'courts' of many Belgians at the moment. Value the love, the love of the 'court', value the fidelity. Tell, via your screens and your microphones, about the immensity of beauty and of the person, first about his 'court', about his body, but first of all about his 'court'. Value the child that sleeps in the palace of its mother, the children Astrid and Mathilde expect, value the most fragile link of life which the child is, sleeping in the belly of its mother. Also vallue the elder person who fades away. Many, many elder people die all alone in hospitals now!

Laurent and Claire, value these two links in the circle of life, from the smallest who sleeps in the belly of its mother to the old person fading away. Truly love each other in your private life, and you will have one and a very good and important one. May your love be radiating, be laser-beams. You are public persons, may your life be an example, Claire and Laurent.

Finally, you have chosen several very short texts about love, we have chosen together. Don't forget what Cardinal Danneels told you today, only the love of God will stay faithfull and real in your love. Only the power of the sacrament you have just received will give you the strength. Finally, a small advice, an enormous advice, never go to bed, Claire and Laurent, before having said sorry. Learn to say sorry, sorry or beg your pardon. Many couples have left each other because they didn't know how to say it. Day after day, the two of you have to know how to forgive.

I would like to dedicate to you, beloved brothers and sisters who are present here and who watch this via their screens, I would like to dedicate this beautiful true story, the most beautiful true story I know; I dedicate it to you, Paola and Albert, Nicole and Nicholas, Maria, Henri, to everybody who loves each other, to everybody who has succeeded to cope with fidelity, and finally to those, who with this advice, have split up, divorced, remaried. There is so much suffering living in people in the world today. So to everyone, everyone, I dedicate this story, the story of the white ribbons.

Jean, 20 years old, had challenged his parents in an unprecedented way. You know ... of the kind that a family normally doesn't get over. His father said to him: "Jean, go away! Never come inside again!" Jean left, very unhappy.

Some weeks later he thought: "I have been a scoundrel! I am going to ask my father to forgive me ... Yes, I am going to tell him that I am sorry."

He thus wrote a letter to his father: "Father, I ask for forgiveness. I have been a scoundrel, but I beg you, can you forgive me? I don't write an address at the envelope, no ... But if you forgive me, hang a white ribbon then in the last appletree of the row of trees that lead to the house. Then I shall know that I can come home."

Terrified he said to himself: "Father will never hang this white ribbon in the tree." Thus he called his brother, his friend, Marc and said to him: "Marc, I beg you, come with me. I will drive until a distance of 500 metres from the house and then I hand over the wheel to you. I will close my eyes, while you will slowly drive the alley with appletrees. When you stop then and see a white ribbon in the last appletree I will jump up. If there is no ribbon, I will keep my eyes closed and you can leave again. Then I will never return home again."

And so it happened. At 500 metres from the house Jean hands over the wheel to Marc and closes his eyes. Marc slowly drives past the row of trees and then stops. Jean, still with closed eyes, then asks: "Marc, my friend and my brother, I beg you, did my father hang a white ribbon in the appletree in front of the house?"

Marc answers: "No, there is not one ribbon in the apple tree in front of the house ... there are hundreds of them, in all the appletrees leading to the house!"

Beloved brothers and sisters, leave this ceremony with the white ribbons in your hearts! Claire and Laurent be people of who can forgive, brothers and sisters all be people who can forgive, from whatever culture you are, from whatever religion you belong to. Catholics, protestants, jews, muslims, buddists, atheïsts, agnostics, be people of forgiveness.

Thanks you for being present at this cathedral to celebrate the love.

Finally, salute the love of Claire and Laurent! And thanks for underlining their love with an warm and brotherly applause.

Laurent and Claire, I love you very much. God bless you!

Father Guy Gilbert