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Text Box: applies to that which is spiritual, the false teachers use the concepts to encourage their followers to “sow” money that they may “reap” money and therewith obtain fulfillment of their material desires. Of course the “sowing” is accomplished by donations to the teachers of falsehood, the preachers of lies. For some of the followers of these materialistic teachings any material “success” is sufficient to satisfy their underlying requirements and desires. They attribute their material successes to following and contributing to the preachers of lies whom they follow, and not to their own efforts which are enabled by God’s will. But for most of these followers their lack of gross or striking material success is attributed in their own minds to lack of fervor in following their pastors - their pastors who have lead them to fields of loco weed watered by springs of poison. Those who perceive themselves to lack success in the material world, be it in health, or in economic status, often despair. They have accepted a false system and when they do not have success in that false system they have no recourse outside of that system for they have rejected the truth. They have rejected the truth, that spiritual well being is God’s promise to those who follow The Way He taught. And they reject The Way He actually taught. Consider the poor hunchbacked fool who left the true Church to follow a charismatic, evangelical, pentecostalistic, money grubbing, womanizing preacher, who promised J_E_S_U_S would cure his hunchback if he attended the preacher’s church (notice it is the preacher’s church, not God’s Church), supported it financially, and recruited others to attend the preacher’s church. After forty years with no cure, bent over so much that when he walks he looks between his legs at where he has just left, but he persists in the false church for he gave up true Faith for empty promises. It is difficult for those whose focus is on the

Text Box: material world, to gain or regain focus on the spiritual world. It also is very difficult for those who focus on the material world to admit they made a mistake, especially a mistake about what God promised and about the spiritual world. Such people are doomed to be forever unfulfilled, never be secure in any level of what they consider to be positive material condition, never really satisfied, never really happy. That is, unless they accept what they really already know. That real, permanent, and complete happiness is only found in pursuing and attaining that which Jesus Christ - God, really promised; that being in making the Two Great Commandments, the Ten Commandments, The Virtues, Beatitudes, Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, and all that Christ taught, integral in their very being, in their very essence. +

Text Box: SAINT BENJAMIN Feast day: March 31, and October 13/26 (412, 424?) The Christians in Persia had enjoyed twelve years of peace during the reign of Isdegerd, son of Sapor III, when in 420 it was disturbed by the indiscreet zeal of Abdas, a Christian Bishop who burned the Temple of Fire, the great sanctuary of the Persians. King Isdegerd threatened to destroy all the churches of the Christians unless the Bishop would rebuild it. As Abdas refused to comply, the threat was executed: the churches were demolished, Abdas himself was put to death, and a general persecution began which lasted forty years. Isdegerd died in 421, but his son and successor, Varanes, carried on the persecution with great fury. The Christians were submitted to the most cruel tortures. Among those who suffered was St. Benjamin, a Deacon, who had been imprisoned a year for his Faith. At the end of this period, an ambassador of the Emperor of Constantinople obtained his release on condition that he would never speak to any of the courtiers about religion. St. Benjamin, however, declared it was his duty to preach Christ and that he could not be silent. Although he had been liberated on the agreement made with the ambassador and the Persian authorities, he would not acquiesce in it, and neglected no opportunity of preaching. He was again apprehended and brought before the king. The tyrant ordered that reeds should be thrust in between his nails and his flesh and into all the tenderest parts of his body and then withdrawn. After this torture had been repeated several times, a knotted stake was inserted into his bowels to rend and tear him. The martyr expired in the most terrible agony about the year 424. Does anyone know what Persia is called today? +

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