Is my hawthorn dying or just stressed?

Cedar-hawthorn rust and cedar-quince rust hit it every wet spring in a state full of eastern redcedar — bright orange-yellow leaf spots, often with a black dot at the center, sometimes enough to defoliate a branch. That is an appearance problem and the tree lives; fire blight is what kills it, and you tell them apart by color and shape: orange spots mean alive, while black scorched shoot tips hooked into a shepherd's crook with dead leaves still clinging mean cut back hard into clean wood.