Dear Friends,

In June of 2016, voters in the United Kingdom (UK) participated in a referendum to decide their countries future involvement in the European Union (EU), which it had joined in 1973. The question that voters were asked to decide was whether the UK should remain a member of the EU or leave the EU. Understandably, many people in the UK had a strong opinion on what their country should do, and they divided into a “remain” camp and a “leave” camp. In the end, 51.89% of voters indicated their preference that the UK leave the EU and 48.11% voted for the UK to remain in the UK. After the referendum, the UK began a complicated, years-long legal process to separate itself from the EU and to establish a new relationship with it. That process continues to this day.

I mention this to you because the experience of people in the UK with came to be known as the “Brexit” (British Exit) referendum and its consequences can help us receive and appreciate the Word of God we hear proclaimed this Sunday. Specifically, the choice that people in the UK faced between “remaining” and “leaving” the EU can help us recognize and respond to a central question that we face as disciples of the Lord Jesus.

In this Sunday’s gospel passage from the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus use the word “remain(s)” eight times in just a few verses. Clearly, this is a key word in the passage! For good measure, the word “remain(s)” appears twice in the last verse of the second reading of today’s Mass, taken from the First Letter of St. John. The gospel and the second reading are impressing on us the need to “remain” in the Lord and to allow the Lord to “remain” in us. But what does that mean?

The word “remain” can appear to us to suggest passivity, as if all we are being called to do is to stay put. But, as the 2016 UK referendum can remind us, to leave or to remain has real and significant consequences for us as individuals and as a people of faith. The UK is a very different country today because of the choice that a majority of voters made to leave the EU than it would be if a majority of voters had opted to remain in the EU. As a result of choosing the leave the EU, UK citizens have regained the ability to act independently of the EU in many areas of their civic affairs, but they have also lost the ability to act in concert with the EU in other areas.

Something similar, but even more consequential, results from the choice we have of remaining with the Lord and allowing him to remain in us. The bond that is involved in this choice is not merely a political or economic choice, it is an existential choice, a choice that impacts our entire life. That is why Jesus says, “Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. […] Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

Those are strong words coming from Jesus! It’s not like we can work out a new arrangement, like the UK has tried to do with the EU, by which we can “gain” some “independence” from Jesus, while trying to get some of the “benefits” of having limited kind of relationship with him.

It’s all or nothing. We either bear much fruit in our life lived in union with Jesus, or we can do nothing in our life lived apart from Jesus.

To form us into individuals and a people who remain in him and who allow him to remain in us, the Lord Jesus gathers us, Sunday after Sunday, to deepen our communion with him and with each other, as we listen to his words of life and share in his life through the Eucharist. As we are formed, Sunday after Sunday, to live from this experience of communion, it becomes possible to remain with the Lord and with each other throughout the week. The Sunday Eucharist makes it possible for us to live branches of the true vine, Jesus, as we are grafted and pruned more and more by the divine vine grower. In that way, we can bear much fruit, in and through Jesus, giving glory to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

Peace,

Father Leo