Still Bears Fruit

The readings at Mass today included the powerful Gospel passage from Luke Chapter 6 in which Jesus pronounces the Beatitudes (Blessed are the ... But woe ... ).

This particular account is interesting in that Luke places it during the Sermon on the Plain (or "level ground"). In Matthew's Gospel, the Beatitudes come during the Sermon on the Mount.

But today, while I was at the 12:45 p.m. Mass at Old St. Pat's, it was the end of the first reading that struck me the most.

From Jeremiah Chapter 17:

... Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose hope is in the Lord.

He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
it fears not the heat when it comes;
its leaves stay green;
in the first year of drought it shows not distress,
but still bears fruit.

Message: If your roots are deep and healthy -- and you are in a place where nourishment is at hand -- you can still thrive when hard times come.

As A Concord Pastor said in his homily today:

What matters is where we choose to be planted,
what waters we choose to drink,
in the soil of whose truth we choose to put down our roots.

Flashback: 2007

The photo above is from here.