“Well! This is different!”, quoth I. The First Lady’s Rally Prayer POLL.

Yesterday I watched the TV coverage of Pres. Trump’s massive rally in Florida. Apparently, lines were a mile long to attend.

My jaw nearly dropped when First Lady Melania Trump began with the Lord’s Prayer.

As this developed, “I thought I could hear the sound of liberal heads first imploding, and then exploding, and then imploding back to a tiny state of instability.

The cynical might say that this was a good political move in a region where along lots of roads of lots of towns you see store-front churches, mega-churches where “Pastor Buddy” holds forth and where prayer and football are almost interchangeable.

On the other hand, Pres. Trump seemed genuinely surprised by his wife’s choice. It seems that we also have a “Let Melania be Melania” term of office as well. Spontaneity seems to be the order of the day. For example, the President invited a guy from the audience up to the mic and let him speak. Surprise!

¡Hagan lío!

Let’s have a POLL.

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The First Lady's Prayer at the 18 Feb 2017 Florida Trump Rally

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About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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36 Comments

  1. Unwilling says:

    Not since ’63! Mind-blowing.

  2. Awesome! She seemed emotional and it was heartfelt IMHO.

  3. Bosco says:

    I have heard the Democrats are stating she plagiarized the whole thing.

    [Yep. She stole it from the Bible.]

  4. LuisaP says:

    President ad Mrs. Trump have shown political courage. They don’t need the money, the celebrity, the fame, the vitrol, the disruption of their personal lives, etc. I’d like to think they are doing this with some modicum of true public service. Thinking that, I have just finished the 54 day rosary novena for their conversion to the True Faith, to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I believe there could be no better ‘thank you’ for what they are doing for the country than that.

    Join in ???

  5. Gerard Plourde says:

    She made an excellent choice in this unusual role for a First Lady, since it is the prayer specifically given to us by Our Lord. It speaks of our total dependence on God who is sovereign of all, of our duty to forgive those who have harmed us (since we will be forgiven in the same measure as we forgive), and asks for God’s help and protection from temptation and evil. It is exactly the reminder we need in these troubled times full of chaos, division, and suspicion.

  6. Ivan says:

    May our good Lord bless, protect and lead the whole Trump family!

  7. Chiara says:

    I think Melania will not allow others to put words into her mouth again, as she did at the RNC with dreadful results. This appearance and her leading the Our Father is an example of this, and I think it was heartfelt and genuine on her part. As for Donald, I voted for him in spite of his appalling past behavior, and I hope he is a work in progress.

    As for Melania, she is not seeking attention or promoting herself. She also has a past with some unfortunate decisions, but she has grown into an impressive person. She is an outstanding, loving mother, and a good example to others in this area. In my opinion, she is lovely and presents herself impeccably, both in dress and manner.

    Until I see something to the contrary, I am very proud to have her representing me as my country as First Lady. Well done, Melania!

  8. KAS says:

    I like her a great deal. Our president ought to put her in charge of the needs of our veterans. Although, I guess with all the feminist misogyny around, women need her too.

  9. I was all set to comment, but Chiara already said what I wanted to say!

    God Bless the President & First Lady, and may He guide them and their actions.

  10. DD says:

    This was wonderful. They (and Baron) are in my daily prayers.

  11. SKAY says:

    Exactly my thoughts DD.

  12. L. says:

    The President’s supporters mostly support public prayer. If his opponents really believe he is as bad as they say, they ought to be impelled to pray more, too. Either way, Trump = more prayer!

  13. William Tighe says:

    Is she a Catholic?

  14. I noticed that, except for the addition of “for Thine is the Kingdom, etc.” she used the Catholic version.

  15. RobertAllen says:

    Is this really happening? I mean, I know that you cannot outdo the Lord in generosity, but our 1st Lady reciting the Pater Noster at a political rally is SO stunningly wonderful as to simply strain credulity. Thank you Father Z for the link. RFGA, Ph.D.

  16. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Anita Moore, O.P. (lay) notes, “she used the Catholic version.” The Wikipedia “Lord’s Prayer” article links to the English version of the Catechism on the Vatican website, and the ” History of the Lord’s Prayer in English” article links to a scan of Challoner’s Ordo administrandi sacramenta (1759) in effective confirmation of this – effective, but not exclusive. For this is noted in both articles as also “The slightly modernized form used in the 1928 version of the Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America” (in the words of the former article). And the ‘Doxology’ she uses is the ‘Anglican’ one ending “forever and ever”. Mr. and Mrs. Trump were (if that is a ‘neutral’ way of putting it) married in the Episcopal Church in the U.S., though Mr. Trump is formally a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) – which (according to the former Wikipedia article) “uses the words ‘ debts’ and ‘ debtors'” rather than ‘trespasses’.

    Mrs. Trump says ” Let us pray”, and we can see the lips of some of those behind her doing so, and at least some of the time hear what sounds a good number of those present doing so as well (which can have its tricky aspects when some are saying ‘ trespasses’ and others ‘debts’ and ‘ debtors’ and still others ‘sins’, and, again, ‘ forever and ever’ and others ‘forever’ and still others ‘now and forever’).

    William Tighe interestingly asks, “Is she a Catholic?” I can’t remember what, if anything, I’ve read about her faith, though I have a vague sense of having seen something about her parents – but what, exactly? The Socialist Republic of Slovenia, as one of the six ‘federated republics’ within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where she spent her life until age 18, was not, I suppose, the place to encourage Church membership (but not one outlawing it, either). I wonder whether she is more accustomed to praying the Lord’s Prayer in another of her six languages – Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Italian, French, German – or even, perhaps, in Latin, Greek, or Church Slavonic.

  17. Kathleen10 says:

    It’s rather stunning. If these times were any different, I may wonder, but there has never been a time like this in the USA or the world. Truly it has to be good for this president and family to boldly ask God for his blessing and guidance, and I pray they get it. No American president has had to face this type of treasonous resistance.

  18. THREEHEARTS says:

    Mike Hurcum writes
    Melania is a member of a small orthodox byzantine catholic church out of eastern Europe, I believe she attends it regularly/ If you really and truly want or need to pray form them, try this for them both.
    “Send them help O Lord and comfort from Thy Holy Place and from Sion preserve them”

    Sion in the old ways generally meant the world,

  19. Elizabeth D says:

    May they have the grace to live as brother and sister.

  20. Michael_Thoma says:

    @Anita Moore, O.P.(lay) :

    There is no one “Catholic version”, the one she used is the one used by Byzantine Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Malankara Syriac Catholics, etc..

    It is also generally the one used by mainstream protestants.

  21. Giuseppe says:

    She comes from a Roman Catholic country. Was she baptized Roman Catholic? Did she convert to her husband’s “little cracker” Presbyterianism, since she says the Protestant version?

  22. asburyfox says:

    Truly beautiful and remarkable considering she grew up in Catholic Slovenia but was denied the Catholic faith by her Atheist Communist father. She wasn’t allowed to be baptized and make her first Communion, which scandalized her relatives.

  23. tdhaller says:

    I don’t think she deliberately “chose” one of the versions. The “Anglican” Lord’s Prayer is more or less the only version you’ll ever hear in Europe (where only British English is taught, and the British forms of everything are considered ‘standard’). So she probably went with the prayer she has always been familiar with, and never bothered to “re-learn”, sticking to the words she knew since childhood.

    (Same here – I doubt the Lord will mind)

  24. PA mom says:

    Asburyfox-is that right? Then she knows first hand about religious suppression.

    I had wondered how it had become an apparently serious and central part of the platform (:doubted Trump had any personal experience of it).

    Very interesting.

  25. iprimap says:

    After 8 long years, I am finally proud of the First Lady.

  26. cwillia1 says:

    This is a welcome act of civil disobedience. It violates the unwritten canons of political correctness. Prominent people are expected to be Christian in private and in public confine themselves to pious progressive sentiments about diversity, inclusion and the like. The deep rage directed at Trump and his supporters comes from the fact that they are deliberately, unashamedly and relentlessly sacrilegious with respect to the established progressive religion.

  27. JamesA says:

    Isn’t it profoundly sad that this is such a revolutionary, subversive act ? God bless the Trumps. I feel America might just become great again, if we can overcome the satanic rage of the Left.
    Kyrie eleison !

  28. Nan says:

    VST, Slovenia didn’t crack down on churches under communism. There’s a big Franciscan church in old Town Ljubljana, where grandma’s cousin went to Mass every day. I sang in the choir of a church that never bothered to change the Mass. My explanation is that Ljubljana was part of the Roman empire and Latin is therefore the vernacular.

    There was an exhibit about emigration at a museum in Novo Mesto that enumerated those leaving each village. Places with low populations had seen hundreds leave for the US, so much that they said “America is our problem.” The village my great grandmother was from was reduced to a couple of houses, mostly descendants of the sister who remained there. The Church was only used twice a year, on its patron saints feast days. We went up to look at it as the house was closest so my family had the key.

  29. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Dear Nan,

    Many thanks! I have too little knowledge or sense of life in the ‘Socialist Republics’ in the ‘Socialist Federal Republic’ when they were such, though I have happened to meet Orthodox and Muslims from a couple of them who certainly seemed to have been part of communities that ‘carried on’ under them. It would be interesting to hear more about Mrs. Trump’s grandparents – maybe faithful persistence there too!

  30. KateD says:

    I didn’t see an option for,

    “A Big Texas HECK YEAH!”

    So I opted for the less enthusiastic, “Fantastic….yada, yada”

    The country needs that prayer repeated in a constant loop 24/7, until all head implosions/explosions/spinnings cease.

  31. catholictrad says:

    No doubt the god-rejecting Demoncrat party spun into a major tizzy over this. I read many comments from people following the party of the KKK and race hatred (George Wallace, standing in the school house door) and the sacrament of abortion, who actually thought it hypocritical for a republican to pray.

    No doubt we all fall far short of the perfection Jesus calls us to, but considering their beam-in-the-eye, it takes incredible gall to call the other guy a hypocrite.

  32. MikeR says:

    Would have been nice if the prayer was said in Latin, “Pater nosta…”

    But hey with Mrs Trump praying publicly & Nikki Hailey serving it up to the UN, not a bad week!

  33. philosophicallyfrank says:

    There are going to be a lot of Christians, including Catholics, who are going to have to admit that they were wrong in their original condemnation of Donald Trump and there should be a lot of “mea culpas” from the Church hierarchy as well; although, they are unlikely to do so. Too many of them are too entwined with the Democrat Party. Pres. Trump will not be perfect, none of us are; but, he will be a “heap sight” better then “any” of the others. Let us pray that he and his family survives the next 4/8 years.

  34. Joanne S. says:

    I think the Lord has his hand on Trump and this presidency because He hasn’t given up on the U.S.A. I wouldn’t be surprised if Melania and Donald are both feeling God’s input; Trump has said how touched he’s been when people tell him, “I’ve been praying for you.” Moreover, there have been numerous reports that Trump’s staff, though from a variety of religious backgrounds, have shown themselves to be prayerful and respectful of God. Kelly Ann Conway told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo that she has run into Sean Spicer at Mass. General Kelly blessed himself after being sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence. I’ve actually seen a photo posted on the internet of Trump staff members holding hands during a prayer. And VP Pence is himself an Evangelical an devout Christian. We must all continue to pray for this administration because we are all on this boat called the USA. I said a 54-day novena for the elections and I believe the miraculous result is an answer to prayer. I continue to pray daily for our president and our country. God Bless America.

  35. Maria_1 says:

    Very glad about the prayer (still not glad about Trump). May we have more public prayer.

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