[00:00] The first reading today paints quite a scene in our minds of these 400 and whatever it was, 50 prophets of Baal and them all slashing themselves and jumping around while the prophet is making fun of them and saying that their god has maybe gone to a bathroom break or something. And we think of what God was doing in the eyes of the people. He was showing His

[00:40] credentials. He came down, and He accepted the sacrifice, and He showed them who was God. That's one of the things that we have to understand is that God will never, He will never confirm a false prophet in their teaching, obviously. It would be a contradiction to do so. Elijah understood that

[01:11] and he had the faith that God would hear his prayer and God did. It highlights for us what exactly true religion is. We see all these religions, and many people are saying like, "Oh, you can always, you know, there's many different paths to get up the mountain. There, you know, there's so many different ways of coming to God." Well, no, there is only one way to come to God, and that is through the truth. And as our Lord Himself said, "Nobody comes to, comes to the

[01:42] Father or goes to the Father except through Me." And we have to understand that here you have these prophets who are practicing, you know, complete false religion. Why? Because they don't even believe in the one true God, and they're definitely not worshiping Him in the manner in which He's revealed. So there's two aspects to true religion. You can, we can pretend we're, you know, aligned with the, the Jews and the Muslims in worshiping the one true God. You know, that may be the case

[02:19] if you're looking at it as a monotheistic religion, but the reality is that none of them believe that, that God is Father. None of them believe that in the Holy Trinity, which is the very essence of the Godhead, you know, God is three in one. So that right there cancels them out as far as the true religion. Then, in the worship of the one true God, but then also there's the aspect of how we worship

[02:53] God. You have all these thousands and thousands of Protestant religions, and you walk into their churches, and it's more like walking into a courtroom. And they, they all proclaim that they're worshiping God in one way or another, that, that they're doing it right. But the reality is, is that we're only worshiping God to the degree that we're following His truth and following His revelation. God does not just reveal Himself to us in revelation, but He also reveals how exactly

[03:26] we're supposed to worship Him. And what is the highest worship of God? The highest worship of God is the worship that His Son gave Him. And what is worship? You see, throughout the Bible, that it's sacrifice. Well, the greatest sacrifice in the history of the world was the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The priest, the victim, the sacrifice. He offered Himself, and that was what all the other

[04:00] sacrifices leading up to that were just a small shadow and reflection of. And all of our sacrifices that we make, whether we're part of the sacramental priesthood or the priesthood of the faithful, in that we're all called to sacrifice, are only, have any value in so far as they're, they're united to the cross of Christ. And where we find that same worship? It's in the Catholic Church. It's on the altars. It's at the sacrifice of the Mass. That is where that one sacrifice that

[04:36] goes beyond time and space is, we're brought into it. We're brought to Calvary to that Mass that knows no time. That one sacrifice that is always present to the Father in eternity and will always be present for all eternity. That is true religion, and no one else has it.

[05:07] So we have to realize that we are the chosen people of God. We are supposed to be the light on the hill that cannot be hidden. We are the salt of the earth. We are Elijah. We are the ones who have been given the true revelation about who God is, and also how God wants us to worship Him. And it is through the sacrifice of His Son,

[05:41] the sacrifice of the Mass. It is in the adoration of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. That is how we worship God, and that is how we practice our true religion. That is the mystery of our salvation, and if we want to become saints, it is always around that sacrifice. And it is offering our sacrifices in union with that one sacrifice of the cross.

[06:12] And in that cross, in that worship, everything that we do for the good has value because it is by that sacrifice in which we receive sanctifying grace, which is the life of God within our souls so that everything that we do merits for something higher, which is eternal life.