Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifth Sunday of Easter

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. (John 15:1–8)

Rely on the truth and fear not, my brothers,
for our Lord is not weak that He should desert us in trials.
He is the power on Whom depend the creation and its inhabitants.
On Him depends the hope of His church.
Who is able to cut off its heavenly roots?
Blessed is He Whose power came down and was mingled with his churches!

Bestow on yourselves, my brothers, the treasure of consolation
from the word our Lord spoke about His church,
“The bars of Sheol cannot conquer her.”
If, indeed, she is mightier than Sheol,
who among mortals can frighten her?
Blessed is He Who made her great yet has tested her that she might be greater!

Reach out, indeed, your hands toward the Branch of Truth
that has torn asunder the arms of warriors without being bent.
She bent down from her height and came down to the contest.
She tested the true, who hung on her,
but those hanging with an [ulterior] motive withered and fell.
Blessed is He Who brought her down to go up in triumphs!

Elijah, then, was drunk with the love of the True One,
and without fear he seethed and confronted the house of Ahab,
who demeaned the Creator and worshiped creatures:
Jezebel led her retinue to Sheol.
The crowns of seven thousand men were glorious.
Blessed is He Who revealed to his servant concerning hidden treasure!

The sons of truth, then, grow large on this Branch of Truth;
they have been perfected and have become fruits fit for the kingdom.
But, although the Branch is living, on it are also
dead fruits that blossom [only] apparently.
The wind tested them and shook down the wild grapes.
Blessed is He Who crowned by it those who held fast in Him!…

Jesus, bend down to us Your love that we may grasp
this Branch that bent down her fruits for the ungrateful;
they ate and were satisfied, yet they demeaned her who had bent down
as far as Adam in Sheol.
She ascended and lifted him up and with him returned to Eden.
Blessed is He Who bent her down toward us that we might seize her and ascend on her.

Who indeed will not weep that although the Branch is great,
the weakness of one unwilling to seize her greatness
maintains that she is a feeble branch—
she who has conquered all kings and cast a shadow
upon the entire world! By suffering her power has increased.
Blessed is He Who made her greater than that vine from Egypt!

Who will not hold fast to this Branch of Truth?
She bore the true ones; she shed the false.
Not because they were too heavy for her did she shed them.
For our sake she tested them in the breeze;
it shook down the shriveled; it ripened the firm.
Blessed is He Who rejected the vineyard that was a source of wild grapes!

Ephrem the Syrian, Against Julian: On the Church 1–5, 8–10