Wednesday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time at Mississippi Abbey

Here are a couple lessons we can learn from trees. First, “By their fruits you will know them.”  Good trees bear good fruit.

Second, the importance of the way they are leaning, because “As a tree leans so it will fall.”1 Qoheleth warns us, “Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.”2 When it dies, a good tree leaning towards heaven will not fall towards hell.  So, “Be careful about the way you are leaning.”1

Or, in the words of St. Irenaeus, “The business of the Christian is nothing else but to be ever preparing for death.”3

  1. The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss
  2. Ecclesiastes 11:3.
  3.  St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Apostolic Fathers