The Holy Guardian Angels | Catholic Daily No. 105

Jerome read one verse and answered it with an exclamation. More than eight centuries later, Aquinas explained it.

"At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who thinkest thou is the greater in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them, and said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven."

"See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven."

The Latin is Videte ne contemnatis unum ex his pusillis: dico enim vobis, quia angeli eorum in caelis semper vident faciem Patris mei.

Aquinas gathered what the Fathers said on that verse in the Catena Aurea. Jerome: "High dignity of souls, that each from its birth has an Angel set in charge over it!" Chrysostom reads the second half of the verse closely: when Christ says they "behold the face of my Father," "He shews that their presence before God is free and open, and their honour great." The Gloss adds that the little ones "are not to be despised for that they are so dear to God, that Angels are deputed to be their guardians." Origen reports two views on when the Angel is given, at rebirth in Christ or from birth, and leaves the question open.

The first reading is God's answer to Job out of the whirlwind: "Didst thou since thy birth command the morning, and shew the dawning of the day its place?" (Job 38:12). The psalm response is Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.

Aquinas puts the question in the Summa (I, q. 113): are men guarded by the angels? He answers in two steps. The first is a principle he sees everywhere in creation: "in all things the movable and variable are moved and regulated by the immovable and invariable." Bodies are ruled by spiritual substances, lower bodies by higher ones. Then he turns it on ourselves: "We ourselves also are regulated as regards conclusions, about which we may have various opinions, by the principles which we hold in an invariable manner."

The second step is the reason a person needs it. "As regards things to be done human knowledge and affection can vary and fail from good in many ways; and so it was necessary that angels should be deputed for the guardianship of men, in order to regulate them and move them to good." He cites the Book of Wisdom for it: "The thoughts of mortal men are fearful, and our counsels uncertain" (Wisdom 9:14).

He then asks whether each man has his own. "Each man has an angel guardian appointed to him" (a. 2). And of which order: the guardianship of one person belongs to the lowest order, because "it seems to be the least of the angelic offices to procure what concerns the salvation of only one man" (a. 3). The Catechism says the same in plain words: "From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession." (CCC 336)

What he describes is not only about angels. A person's judgment and desire move with the day, and what steadies them is something that does not move with the day. That is how a rule works.

Thursday's close · SPY $764.10, +0.2% · tape BULL, regime choppy · new longs paused by the two-loss warning · house book: AMD, CRWD, seven puts, plus the sleeve (DBC/SHY)

SPY rose 0.2% to $764.10 after trading as low as $758.79 during the day, about 0.5% under Wednesday's close. Five of the eleven sector funds finished up, with Energy first at +2.0% and Technology next at +1.1%, and six finished down, Healthcare the weakest at −1.3%. The tape still reads bull. SPY closed back above its 50-day average, so the regime label returned to choppy from consolidation. Volume was 47 million shares against a 50-day average of about 44 million. Because it closed up, Thursday was not a distribution day, and our own count stays at 10 of the last 25 sessions.

The two-loss warning is still on: no new long until SPY closes above $779.37, about 2.0% above Thursday's close. The tape turns, and the system sells every long, only on a SPY close below $629.29. A day that dips half a percent and recovers touches none of that, and it is meant not to.

CrowdStrike (CRWD) closed at $266.44, up 7.1% from its $248.69 average over 636 shares. Those stops at $249 are my own call as Fund manager. AMD closed at $616.01, up 0.8% from its $611.31 entry. The seven puts cost $18,426 and were worth $16,358, down $2,068, the cost of the insurance while the market holds up. The idle-cash sleeve bought 180 more shares of the commodities fund (DBC) and 202 of the short-term Treasury fund (SHY) at the open.

The September jobs report comes out this morning at 8:30 AM ET. No forecast figure is given; the gates do not trade on a calendar.

Holy Guardian Angels, pray for us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

In Christ,

Jonathan Simmons

Enoch Capital LLC

Catholic Daily goes out Monday through Saturday.

LinkedIn · X @jonenochcap · enochcap.com

Enoch Capital LLC · 2121 S. Broadway, #511, Denver CO 80210
Catholic Daily is an educational publication. It is not investment advice. References to markets, specific securities, or economic conditions are illustrative only and do not constitute recommendations to buy or sell any security. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Enoch Capital LLC operates under the Publisher's Exemption from the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (Lowe v. SEC, 472 U.S. 181, 1985). Nothing on this site constitutes the rendering of personalized investment advice. Enoch Capital LLC is not a registered investment adviser.