Forgive me, Holy Father Mark, and bless!
I believe that our closeness to God's creatures, great and small, is a function of our closeness to God in Christ.
Pope St Felix, it was, who was being hotly pursued by Roman soldiers.
He climbed into a hole in the wall and a spider quickly spun a web across the opening.
The soldiers didn't go into the hole to look for Felix as they thought the spider would have spent hours spinning such an elaborate web . . .
To his dying days, Felix was covered with spider-webs and crawling spiders.
He never allowed anyone to hit a spider in his presence and is today the patron saint of spiders, the original "Spider-Man."
It is also bad luck to hit spiders in East Slavic homes, the angel hair on Christmas trees represents spider webs, as it is believed spiders tried to cover the Christ-Child with their webs to warm Him.
And if someone sees a spider at home, it means that you will receive guests that day . . .
Alex
