Our Lady of Ransom | Catholic Daily No. 98

The money ran out in Algiers. Raymond Nonnatus had been sent to buy back Christian captives and had spent everything he was given. There were still captives waiting. So he gave himself as the hostage.

First reading: "Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes vanity of vanities, and all is vanity." And, near the center of the passage: "What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us." — Ecclesiastes 1:2, 9-10

The psalm answers it: "Lord, thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation." — Psalm 89:1 (Psalm 90 in modern numbering)

"Now Herod, the tetrarch, heard of all things that were done by him; and he was in a doubt, because it was said By some, that John was risen from the dead: but by other some, that Elias had appeared; and by others, that one of the old prophets was risen again. And Herod said: John I have beheaded; but who is this of whom I hear such things? And he sought to see him."

Herod has already killed the one man who told him the truth, and now he hears of another. In Aquinas's Catena Aurea, St. John Chrysostom reads "John I have beheaded" as no boast, but a man "allaying his fears, and bringing his distracted soul to recollect that he had killed." Of a conscience like his he writes that "they are afraid of shadows, are suspicious about every thing, and are alarmed at the slightest noise. Such in truth is sin; when no one blames or finds fault, it betrays a man, when no one accuses it condemns." What stays hidden does not stay quiet.

The U.S. calendar shows an ordinary weekday today. The Church has kept September 24 for Our Lady of Ransom, also called Our Lady of Mercy, since 1696, when the feast was extended to the whole Latin Church. The Mercedarian friars still keep it as a solemnity.

It begins with a man who had nothing left. Peter Nolasco was born about 1189 near Castelnaudary, in the south of France, into a noble family. He gave his possessions to the poor and went to Barcelona, where much of Spain was held by the Moors and many Christians were held captive. He ransomed as many as he could, and in doing it he spent his whole inheritance.

Tradition says Our Lady then asked for something larger than one man's fortune: an order whose whole purpose would be to free captives. His confessor, Raymond of Penyafort, and the young King James of Aragon supported him, and the Order of Mercy was founded at Barcelona in 1218. Its friars took a fourth vow, beyond poverty, chastity and obedience. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives its practical form plainly: to employ all their substance for the redemption of captive Christians and, "if necessary, to remain in captivity in their stead."

Raymond Nonnatus took the habit from Peter himself and became a ransomer. He was sent to Algiers and freed many captives. "When money failed he gave himself as a hostage." He kept teaching the faith there. He was sentenced to be impaled; the governor, hoping for a larger ransom, commuted it to prison, and to keep him from preaching, his lips were pierced with a red-hot iron and closed with a padlock. He returned to Spain in 1239 and died the following year.

The friars' work was to bring a hidden thing into the open and pay what it cost to end it. Pope Leo XIV asks the same of us in Magnifica Humanitas, where he names the forms captivity takes now. Of debt: "Even certain forms of structural indebtedness, which keep entire peoples in conditions of dependence, reflect the same mentality, in new forms, that tolerates relationships of subordination akin to slavery." (Art. 172) And of the digital economy: "It is not enough to invoke efficiency, nor to celebrate the benefits of innovation, if they are built on a chain of exploitation that remains deliberately hidden." (Art. 173)

That is one reason the Catholic screen runs first here, before a price is looked at: it is how a portfolio asks who is in the chain.

Wednesday's close: SPY $767.81, −0.7% · Nasdaq 100 −0.8% · Russell 2000 −1.8% · system CHOPPY, no new entries

The Preacher says nothing under the sun is new. Edwin Lefèvre says it about markets in Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the 1923 book widely read as the story of Jesse Livermore: "Another lesson I learned early is that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market to-day has happened before and will happen again." The system is built on that. It does not guess the market's mood. It reads the pattern.

After a flat Tuesday, Wednesday turned lower. The S&P 500 fund fell 0.7%, the Nasdaq 100 fund 0.8%, and small caps 1.8%. The regime stays choppy. The scanner found nineteen names that have cleared every gate and sit within 5% of their 52-week pivots. None triggered an entry, so the system bought nothing.

The three long positions held. CrowdStrike (CRWD) closed at $262.49, 8.8% above its entry of $241.25. AMD closed at $614.61, down 1.5% on the day and 0.5% above its entry of $611.31. Neogen (NEOG) closed at $13.57, 0.7% below its entry of $13.67. None closed below its exit level — each one's breakout pivot less 2%, at $226.38, $569.29 and $12.74 — so nothing sells at the open.

Our Lady of Ransom, pray for us — that we would count the cost of another's freedom, and pay it.

In Christ,

Jonathan Simmons

Enoch Capital LLC

Catholic Daily goes out Monday through Saturday.

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