The souls of the just | Catholic Daily No. 132

Yesterday the Church kept all the saints. Today she keeps everyone else she is still praying for, and Monday belongs to Saint Joseph, whom the Church calls on at the hour of death.

Today the Church permits a choice among several readings. These are the ones used here.

First reading, Wisdom 3:1-6, 9: "But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure was taken for misery: And their going away from us, for utter destruction: but they are in peace. And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded: because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace he hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust he hath received them, and in time there shall be respect had to them." The reading ends: "They that trust in him, shall understand the truth: and they that are faithful in love shall rest in him: for grace and peace is to his elect."

The Latin of the first line is Justorum autem animae in manu Dei sunt, et non tangent illos tormentum mortis.

The second reading is Romans 5:5: "And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us."

Gospel: "All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out. Because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day. And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day." — John 6:37-40

In the Catena Aurea, Alcuin says where the one who comes is not cast out: "in the secret habitation of a pure conscience, he shall dwell with Me, and at the last I will receive him to everlasting felicity." Augustine says why the Lord came down: "Pride casts us out, humility restores us." And Chrysostom says why the Lord keeps mentioning the last day: "to warn men not to judge of God's providence from present events, but to carry on their ideas to another world."

The Gospels record Joseph's work, his dreams and his obedience, and they record nothing of his death. The Church has kept him in her prayers at that hour anyway. Pope Francis, in Patris Corde, writes in the introduction: "Saint Joseph is universally invoked as the 'patron of a happy death'."

In section 5, he names who else Joseph looks after: "Saint Joseph is invoked as protector of the unfortunate, the needy, exiles, the afflicted, the poor and the dying." The reason, he says, is that the Child Joseph protected said "As you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40), so every dying person is, in his words, "the child" Joseph continues to protect.

Today's Gospel is the same promise from the other side. The Father gave the Son a household, and the Son says: "of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing."

The Catechism (1030) says what the Church holds about those who died in friendship with God and are not yet ready: "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven."

And 1032 gives the practice and its roots: "From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God." The paragraph cites the book of Machabees. In the Douay-Rheims, Judas sends silver to Jerusalem "for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection", and the writer concludes: "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (2 Machabees 12:43, 46) The Latin is Sancta ergo et salubris est cogitatio pro defunctis exorare, ut a peccatis solvantur. The Catechism adds: "Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them."

Friday's close: SPY $755.72, −1.8% · Nasdaq 100 −3.5% · Russell 2000 −1.6% · tape BULL, regime correction · new longs still paused by the two-loss warning

Stocks are closed on Saturday and Sunday, so the last close is Friday's. The S&P 500 fund opened at $761.37, down 1.1% from Thursday's close of $769.49, touched a low of $750.38 and a high of $761.43, and closed at $755.72, down 1.8%. That is 3.0% below the six-month closing high of $779.10 set October 6. The Nasdaq 100 fund opened at $697.02 and closed at $690.54, down 3.5%. The Russell 2000 fund fell 1.6% and the equal-weight S&P 500 fund 0.8%. Six of the eleven sector funds rose: energy led at +1.9%, consumer staples gained 1.4%, and utilities, health care, materials and real estate each rose less than 1%. Technology fell 4.9%, industrials 1.6% and communication services 1.3%.

The two-loss warning is still on: the system takes no new long until SPY closes above $779.37, and Friday's close was $23.65 short of it, 3.1% below. The tape turns, and the system sells every long, only on a SPY close below $629.29; Friday's close is 20% above that line. By our own count, 8 of the last 25 sessions are distribution days for the S&P 500 fund and 9 for the Nasdaq 100 fund. The scanner's list holds thirty-six names at or near their 52-week pivots, and none triggered.

The house account is $996,583. Its largest holdings are the idle-cash sleeve, the short-term Treasury fund SHY ($572,472) and the commodity fund DBC ($299,364). Outside the sleeve it holds one stock position, the Invesco DB Agriculture Fund (DBA): 3,604 shares, 9.7% of the account. The seven puts cost $18,426 and were worth $27,183 on Alpaca's marks, up 47.5%, on a day the Nasdaq 100 fund fell 3.5%. Two orders are waiting for Monday's open: a SHY buy of 112 shares and a DBC sale of 253.

Palantir. One of the account's seven puts is on Palantir, and the company reports Monday, November 2, after the close, with its webcast at 5:00 PM ET (its own notice, as returned by search).

The economy. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes Job Openings and Labor Turnover for September on Tuesday at 10:00 AM ET and Productivity and Costs for the third quarter on Thursday at 8:30 AM ET. The Employment Situation for October follows on Friday, November 6, at 8:30 AM ET, and the October Consumer Price Index on Tuesday, November 10. The Federal Open Market Committee does not meet again until December 8-9.

Earnings. Dates and times below are from Nasdaq's earnings calendar unless a company's own notice is named.

→ Monday, Nov 2: Marriott before the open; Apple after the close (its calendar as reported by MacRumors; call 5:00 PM ET), Palantir after the close, Vertex and Williams after the close

→ Tuesday, Nov 3: Pfizer, Eaton, Marathon Petroleum, Ferrari and Shopify before the open; AMD after the close (its own notice; call 5:00 PM ET), Amgen and Arista after the close

→ Wednesday, Nov 4: McDonald's, Uber, CVS, Novo Nordisk and Datadog before the open; Arm and Qualcomm after the close

→ Thursday, Nov 5: ConocoPhillips, Southern Company and Duke Energy before the open; Cloudflare and Airbnb after the close

The levels do not change: SPY above $779.37 lifts the warning, and SPY below $629.29 turns the tape.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

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.