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St. Elijah
00:20:30
Mary McGeehan and Dr. James Prothro discuss the Old Testament prophet, Elijah. Found in both First and Second Kings as well as a few places in the New Testament, Elijah was a significant figure in Salvation History. As a prophet and miracle worker, Elijah boldly proclaimed the word of God, provided comfort and healing to those in need, and prefigured Jesus Christ. Following the example of Elijah, we can learn how to receive spiritual gifts from God and boldly use them in the world.
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- [00:02]
Producer
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith.
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Mary
Welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary, and I'm joined with Dr. James Prothero here at the Augustine Institute, and we're excited to talk about St. Elijah on this episode of Catholic Saints. So St. Elijah, Dr. Prothero, is found where? In Scripture?
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah. So Elijah is mentioned a few times in the New Testament. He's an important figure later, but his story especially is in the Old Testament in the book of first kings, starting in chapter 17, and then that's really where it starts, and then it ends. The end of his ministry and life are at the beginning of the Book of two Kings.
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Mary
Okay. Is it okay to call an Old Testament character a saint?
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Dr. James Prothero
Sort of yes and sort of no. So with Elijah, it's a little bit different. Like, if we think of the word saint just meaning, like, confirmed holy person, then there's a lot of people in both testaments we could refer to as saints. And at different points in history, people have called them that or have not called them that. With Elijah, we think about a normal kind of saint in the church, like a Christian who lives their life and then dies. And then we know with confirmation that they're in heaven and are safe to venerate and ask their intercession. Elijah kind of fits the bill because the way that his life ends is that he's actually assumed into heaven on a fiery chariot.
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Mary
Perfect.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah, exactly. So we know that. We know that's where he headed. And then in the New Testament, when Jesus is on the mount of transfiguration, it's Moses and Elijah who come down to chat with him. And so he's not in the ground. He's somehow up to be able to come and talk with Jesus and be kind of part of the big plan of salvation still in some way. So Elijah is. If there's any Old Testament person that you're like, oh, which one of these am I positive is in heaven? I think Elijah's a pretty good bet.
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Mary
That's a great context. Thank you. And, okay, I'm saying Elijah, you're saying Elijah. Does it matter?
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Dr. James Prothero
It doesn't matter that much. The only real thing to think about with saying this particular prophet's name is to make it distinct from the prophet who follows him, who is Elisha. Or the lectionary has told us, instead of trying to do the J with the J versus the sh with the sh, the new lectionary in America has said, change the vowel. Right. So Elijah and Elisha.
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Mary
Thank you. I forgot I'm sitting with a scripture scholar.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah. Their names in Hebrew are significantly. They're easily distinguishable, but in English because of the way that they've been translated into English since the King James, it's a little bit harder.
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Mary
Fascinating. Thank you.
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Dr. James Prothero
So, yeah, we have to. We just have to watch out to keep them distinct.
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Mary
Wonderful. Okay, well, what's Elijah's story? What do we know about him in Scripture?
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah, so he was a great prophet. And so he's not a literary prophet. That is to say, he didn't leave behind books.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
Like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
Stuff like that. He didn't do that. He was a man who delivered God's word to power right. To the king and was a bit of a wonder worker and by God's power, did various miracles. So he was called by God to work, especially in the time of King Ahab. And Ahab's wife was Jezebel. And both of them, bad news would be an understatement.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
They encouraged. Actively encouraged people toward idol worship, even discouraged faithfulness to the Lord. It wasn't just that they, like, permitted idol worship. It was that they actually, like, endorsed it, encouraged it, tried to get people to do it. And also they were just reprehensible morally. And so, I mean, there's a story later, and Elijah comes and rebukes the king. But there's a story later where the king is moping because he wants to buy some land off of a guy nearby. And the guy's like, no, God gave this to my family. This is our land. That's the whole point of the allotment of the land, is that this is our land. No, I'm not going to sell it to you. And he comes home moping, and his wife, Jezebel, is like, well, aren't you the king, baby? You don't have to put up with that. We'll just make a kangaroo court and get a couple of false witnesses and pay him, and then we'll just have him killed. And that's what they do. And then they assume the property to the king. Right. Because the guy's been convicted. And then, of course, the prophet comes and tells him that bad things are gonna happen. This story, and a true one. Right. This is the kind of thing that we see in life, maybe not as crassly, but sometimes just as crassly in the world sense.
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Mary
Why do you think God sent this prophet at this time in place? Because it seems like there's a lot of times, you know, in the Old Testament where prophets are needed. But why in particular do you think Elijah had this, had this role in this part of our story?
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah. I mean, so God tells Moses that after they come into the land with Joshua that there are going to be various priests in the line of Aaron and Levites who help them out and there will be various prophets that will kind of get raised up. And prophets in the Old Testament do different types of things. So some of them are more, they leave behind long sets of writings. Some prophets that we meet in Samuel are kind of like, they sort of sound like whirling dervishes, right? They just, they kind of go around without a whole lot of, without a lot of clothes on and they sing and are kind of ecstatic. But they don't like go and tell kings what God says all the time, right. And then some people are prophets, like by profession, right? So like David and Zedekiah and other kings like just have prophets who work for them who are like on staff, right. And who live by the palace. And that's their job, is to be a God talk man. And some of them are false prophets and some of them are true, right. And so there's not an easy consistency in what they do or the reason that they're raised up. But God brings Elijah up, we learn from the New Testament. In part, God brings Elijah up to.
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Mary
Be.
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Dr. James Prothero
A kind of prefiguring of the coming of the new kingdom, right? So John the Baptist, Jesus says, was Elijah to come because he came, he rebuked people, he purified them, he was getting them ready. So the things that Elijah does point ahead toward John the Baptist's role. And lots of things that he does are in some ways types of Christ. So Elijah at the beginning of his work in 1 Kings, chapter 17, rebukes the king and the people for their wickedness and idolatry and prays and by God's authority brings about a drought and a famine on the land and then later on undoes it, right? And by his prayer, God ends the famine as a sign of God's displeasure. But he goes and he finds a widow woman who takes care of him, right? And she says, I don't have enough, right. It's a bad time, right. I can't, you know, I'm not in a good way here. And he says, do make something for me and then make something for yourself. And I promise that the little that you have won't run out. And it doesn't. And it says in 1 Kings 17, she did as Elijah said and she had enough to eat for a long time. And he and she and her household. And the jar of flour did not go empty and the jug of oil did not run dry according to the word of the Lord spoken through Elijah. And then sometime later her son falls ill and dies and he prays to God that God would raise the boy. And God does. So he's not the son of God to be able to do it on his own authority. He has to ask, right? He has to pray. And yet when we see Elijah do these two things, we think quickly about the power of God in Jesus who doesn't have to ask permission. It's a contrast, right? Because he's God himself who makes sure that the five loaves feed everyone and that they have leftover and who makes sure. And who raises the dead, right? Who raises a widow's son in the same town that Elijah did. And so he's a type of Christ in the plan of salvation and he's an important figure to come and tell kings what's up and tell kings that they don't, that God is actually the one in charge and that they're just supposed to be his servants.
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Mary
That's a follow up question then to this point. So Elijah is a prefiguring of Jesus who's, you know, the fullness of a prophet, priest, king. Do we have then prophets after Jesus? You know, if, if they're all pointing towards Jesus. Are there prophets? Are the prophets in the New Testament now that we have a culmination of Jesus Christ?
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah, I mean, so we meet different people in the New Testament who are called prophets and who give foretellings of things. Right. So the children of Agabus in the book of Acts would be some of them. Paul talks about people with the gift of prophecy in some churches and he says some people have it, some people don't. Sometimes it seems like the gift of prophecy is just related to like boldly speaking the word of God. And in that sense, everybody with a mouth can do that or an ability to communicate who is in Christ and shares his office of profit.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
By participation. But we don't have anything that tells us that God will never do the same thing again. But we also don't have the same kind of need of it because there isn't any more word of God that is essential to salvation that is to be revealed.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
And if anybody says they have one, you should tell them to leave. Whether it seems to be a vision from heaven or Whether it seems to be right. St. Paul even says, he says, if an angel from heaven comes down and tells you a gospel that's different than the one that you heard from me and from the apostles, let him be accursed.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
Don't listen. So, so prophecy today, I don't doubt that it exists, but it doesn't serve the same kind of purpose.
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Mary
I would say, okay, whereas, you know, yes, leading up to the incarnation, it was the building up to the fullness of the revelation of the gospel.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah. It was still adding stuff that was going to be fulfilled, whereas now it's more like, hey, watch out for this, or hey, you know, like when, you know, we got approved apparitions say, right, that say, hey, beware of this.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
Or if this doesn't happen, then this will happen. Those things don't change the character of the gospel or the truth that we know, but they do say, hey, yo, listen up, public service announcement. This is important and they are important.
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Guest
Right.
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Mary
Maybe a point to emphasize here too is can you lean in on how does having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit after Jesus that we now have access to differ to what level Elijah had access to of the Holy Spirit?
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah. So I'll ask this in two ways. So one of them is there is a different kind of, you might say, level, because one of the things that you find in the New Testament is they talk about the gift of the Holy Spirit being in you.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
And dwelling in you. In the Old Testament, the Spirit usually comes upon people.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
Brings them to do things for certain purposes.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
But then doesn't always doesn't remain as like someone who lives inside of you in the same kind of way that we have in the Holy Spirit. So that's a new thing with Pentecost, right. That God's presence and person through the Son and the Spirit is actually within you.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
And joined to your soul. And that's a new gift.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
Acts 2, 38, 39, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the command gift of the Holy Spirit, just as the apostles and Mary did there at Pentecost in the upper room. So in that way there is a different kind of level on the other hand, among people in the New Covenant.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
In the same kind of way that you get in the Old Testament, the Spirit moves people to different purposes.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
And so this is one of the struggles that Paul has with the Corinthians is that he says some people are boasting in their spiritual gifts because they have fancier looking ones than other people. And so they're thinking, oh, I have a higher level of Holy Spirit activity in me than this other person who doesn't speak in tongues or who doesn't do this or who doesn't do that. And Paul says, wrong. That kind of thing doesn't exist.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
If the Spirit gave you this gift, it's to upbuild the body of Christ. And if the Spirit gave this other person a much more boring gift, it's to upbuild the body of Christ. And anybody who's not using their gift to build up the body of Christ, but only for themselves, is wrong and is actually misusing something that God meant them to have.
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Mary
Misuse of the gift.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah, that's right. And Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, he's particularly dealing with the problem of the gift of speaking in tongues, which he says is a good thing and people should do it, but also the problem of it, that people are doing it in a way that benefits nobody but themselves. He says, if there's no interpreter for it, then don't do it in public.
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Mary
Yeah, no, it makes sense that the gifts, you know, even the gift of prophecy or leaning into the role of a prophet, even with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in, you know, post the Incarnation, is still to direct people towards the fullness of the Gospel.
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Dr. James Prothero
Exactly.
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Mary
And not to ourselves. So similar, similar method, similar rule, but looks differently.
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Dr. James Prothero
And it doesn't mean it's something that can't be cultivated. Right. We all have to receive gifts like this. It can be part of our active devotional life, but everything has to be rightly ordered.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
And if you feel like you don't have enough fancy spirit gift, then start looking for the ones that you do have and cultivate those instead of trying to get ones that you haven't been gifted with. And if you feel like you have the absolute best one, and that means that other people are worse than you, you need to check yourself.
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Mary
That doesn't sound good.
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Dr. James Prothero
But back to Elijah, I mean, we can see here someone who used all of his gifts in ways that we can relate to. So James, in James chapter five, he appeals to Elijah just to talk about fervent prayer. Not any further spiritual gift other than just prayer.
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Guest
Right.
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Dr. James Prothero
Which is itself a spiritual gift.
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Guest
Right.
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Mary
Wait, can you say more on that? He's looking to Elijah as a model of fervent prayer.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah. So James 5, 17 and 18 says the fervent prayer I'm using the nabre here. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful. Elijah was a human being like us, right? Same state, same. Right. He wasn't farther up the candle or. Right. Farther down or whatever. Elijah was a human being like us. And he prayed earnestly that it wouldn't rain. And for three years and six months it didn't rain upon the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the earth produced its fruit. And James is saying, don't act like your prayers are worthless. Elijah is not any different from you, Minus.
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Mary
He rode to heaven on fires of chariots.
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Dr. James Prothero
Well, right.
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Guest
Yeah, right.
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Dr. James Prothero
But in terms of, like, who he is, it's not like Elijah was an angel instead of a human. He's another human being. But God listened to his prayer, right? And again, because it was part of God's what God wanted to do and to be done. So James says, think about Elijah and the drought. When you want to think about prayer and its urgency and its power, we can look at Elijah as an example of strong faith in God against evil around us, right? And whether you have a special gift of prophecy or just the. The one that all of us share in Christ, right? To stand against what is evil and to speak the truth of God to it. Elijah does that and a half against Ahab and Jezebel. But Elijah also gets weary. 1 Kings 19. You know this one, right? Where he goes off by himself and says, God, they've killed all your other prophets. I'm the last one left. They've cut down your altars. This is even after he has a big victory, right? God gives him a big victory over the prophets of the false gods. And Elijah's like, and I'm the only one left, right? Spare my. Like, take my life, right? I'm done. And God sends him food and waits for a little bit and then comes to meet him with a still, small voice that says, elijah, it's not over. I have more for you to do. I will give you rest because you will get to retire and hand on your mantle to Elisha, right? To the next prophet. But I still have more for you to do. But it's not all lost. I have kept people faithful to me, even if it looks like it's all lost. And man, I feel that sometimes. And sometimes, like Elijah, I feel it like right after I have a big victory where I ought to be so grateful to God for what God has done, and then I turn right around and I just become discouraged, right? And so Elijah is on the one hand, he's a prophet, and not everybody has that specific gift, and he is carried into heaven on a chariot, and not everybody will have that happen manifestly. At the same time, as James says, he's a human being like us, and he's really, really like me. When I read these stories, and I go, okay, all right. I can take a lot of. A lot of lessons from watching Elijah.
- [19:01]
Mary
I appreciate that humanity of Elijah. That's emphasized, too. Like his need to continue to persevere in prayer and. Yeah. Just the weariness of persevering in mission sometimes. That's great. One small question. What does. What is Elijah's mantle like? What is that referring to?
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Dr. James Prothero
Oh, it's like the top part of his cloak. Yeah.
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Mary
Okay.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah, he just.
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Mary
Was it just a symbol of him being a prophet or it's just a piece of garment that it's being referred to?
- [19:33]
Dr. James Prothero
I think it's a bit of both. Like, it's part of his clothing, and it's distinctive, and so handing it on to the next guy is part of the kind of changing of the guard ceremony.
- [19:45]
Mary
Well, thank you for this reflection about St. Elijah. Is there anything else that we missed?
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Dr. James Prothero
No, there's plenty. Go and read.
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Mary
There's a whole Bible.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah, go read 1 Kings 17 up through the end of Elijah's story at the beginning of two Kings. And don't just read the stuff that happens, but think about his personality and ways that he is like you and ways that you could be like him.
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Mary
I like that. And outside of the book of James, are there other references of Elijah?
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah. In the Gospels. Right. Where Jesus talks about John the Baptist being Elijah and Elijah coming ahead of time.
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Mary
Awesome.
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Dr. James Prothero
Yeah.
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Mary
Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you for this reflection about St. Elijah, and thank you all for listening.