The night before the Twelve | Catholic Daily No. 128

Today is the feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles. Luke tells us what came before the choosing, and the Church reads it this morning.

Gospel: "And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and he passed the whole night in the prayer of God. And when day was come, he called unto him his disciples; and he chose twelve of them (whom also he named apostles). Simon, whom he surnamed Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon who is called Zelotes, and Jude, the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who was the traitor." — Luke 6:12-16

The Latin of the night is Factum est autem in illis diebus, exiit in montem orare, et erat pernoctans in oratione Dei.

The first reading, Ephesians 2:20: "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone."

In the Catena Aurea, Ambrose will not let us read the prayer as need: "Let not your ears be open to deceit, that you should think that the Son of God prays from want of strength." He is giving us a pattern, and he says what the pattern asks: "For what ought you to do for your salvation, when Christ continues all night in prayer for you?" Of the men chosen, he notes: "Not the wise men, not the rich, not the noble, but He chose to send out fishermen and publicans, that they might not seem to turn men to their grace by riches or by the influence of power and rank, and that the force of truth, not the graces of oratory, might prevail." Cyril adds that Luke names every one of them "that no one should dare to insert any others in the catalogue."

The sources say little about either man. The Catholic Encyclopedia on Simon: he is called Kananaios or Zelotes to tell him from Peter, and both words translate the Hebrew for "the Zealous." "The name does not signify that he belonged to the party of Zealots, but that he had zeal for the Jewish law, which he practised before his call." As to his work afterward: "Where he actually preached the Gospel is uncertain." In art he carries a saw.

Jude is the author of the short letter that bears his name, and he introduces himself in one line: "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James." Most Catholic commentators, the same encyclopedia says, identify him with the "Judas Jacobi" of Luke 6:16, also called Thaddeus, and call that view "most highly probable." Augustine, in the Catena Aurea, answers the doubt in a sentence: "But what prevented a man from being called by two or three names?" The same encyclopedia adds, from Hegesippus as Eusebius tells it, that two of his grandsons were still living under the emperor Trajan.

His letter ends with a rule for ordinary days: "But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting." (Jude 1:20-21)

In the West the two are kept together on this day; the Greeks and Copts keep Simon on May 10.

The Catechism (857) says why the list in Luke matters: "The Church is apostolic because she is founded on the apostles." Paragraph 858 says who sent them: "Jesus is the Father's Emissary," and the Twelve are his emissaries in turn: "In them, Christ continues his own mission."

Tuesday's close: SPY $769.70, +0.6% · Nasdaq 100 +1.3% · Russell 2000 +1.2% · tape BULL, regime choppy · new longs still paused by the two-loss warning

Tuesday opened higher and held it. The S&P 500 fund opened at $767.43, 0.3% above Monday's close, touched a low of $765.21, and closed at $769.70, up 0.6%, after a high of $771.12. That is 1.2% below the six-month closing high of $779.10 set October 6. The Nasdaq 100 fund opened 0.4% higher, at $715.22, and closed at $721.22, up 1.3%. The Russell 2000 fund rose 1.2%, while the equal-weight S&P 500 fund rose 0.1%. Five of the eleven sector funds rose and six fell: technology led at +1.7%, consumer discretionary followed at +1.0%, and materials rose 0.8%. Energy was the weakest at −2.0%, consumer staples fell 0.9%, and real estate fell 0.8%.

The two-loss warning is still on: the system takes no new long until SPY closes above $779.37, and Tuesday's close was $9.67 short of it, 1.3% below. The tape turns, and the system sells every long, only on a SPY close below $629.29; Tuesday's close is 22% above that line. By our own count, 7 of the last 25 sessions are distribution days for the S&P 500 fund and 7 for the Nasdaq 100 fund. The scanner's list holds forty names at or near their 52-week pivots, and none triggered.

The house account holds no stock positions, and no orders were placed Tuesday. The seven puts cost $18,426 and were worth $20,699 on Alpaca's marks, up 12.3%, down from 23.4% Monday on a day the market rose. The account closed at $988,458, and the idle-cash sleeve is in commodities (DBC) and short-term Treasuries (SHY).

What is ahead. The Federal Open Market Committee ends its two-day meeting today, October 28, with its decision. Microsoft reports after the close, and Alphabet is listed for the same evening on Nasdaq's calendar. Thursday brings Eli Lilly, Mastercard, Merck, Caterpillar and Bristol-Myers Squibb before the open, then Amazon and Starbucks after the close, and the advance estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product and the September report on personal income and outlays at 8:30 AM ET. The Employment Cost Index follows Friday at 8:30 AM ET. The levels do not change: SPY above $779.37 lifts the warning, and SPY below $629.29 turns the tape.

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Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

In Christ,

Jonathan Simmons

Enoch Capital LLC

Catholic Daily goes out Monday through Saturday.

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