The Prayer That Saved Trump: Catholic Priest’s Divine Warning

Full Episode Transcript:

Priest Jason Charron: We’re surrounded by unseen powers,

principalities, angelic and demonic. God infinitely perfect and good in himself does not need our prayers. but we need those prayers. we need those prayers because it’s through them that we are connected to the source of life and light and wisdom. God judges a people, a nation, by the way her people treat their orphans, their widows, their poor.

So you can pray, you can be sorry. But you have to make reparation. You broke the widow’s window. You have to, replace it.

Matt Kane: Joining me right now is Father Jason Sharon, a Ukrainian Catholic priest who gave the opening prayer at President Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, just moments before he was nearly assassinated. Father, thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome.

Priest Jason Charron: It’s an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

Matt Kane: Just after the opening prayer you gave at the rally, you spoke to a smaller group in the crowd and said, we need to keep praying for President Trump. Because there are people who not only want to kill him, but specifically shoot him. Now, when I heard this exchange, I was immediately curious to find out whether this was something you have said in the past, or if something prompted you to pray against somebody who wanted to harm him by shooting specifically.

Priest Jason Charron: yeah, it was, a general, sense that I had. that’s, in general, we, there are people who want to, hurt him and, but specifically, I just felt that, at that moment, I, that particular moment, I felt, a need to encourage people, to pray for his protection.

Matt Kane: What do you attribute that to?

You, emphasized in that moment. Did something, prompt you to do that in that moment? Yes.

Priest Jason Charron: Yeah. Divine grace. In my line of work, this, this is not unusual for, something to be placed on the heart of a priest and, moments, days, years later, it seemed to be, the hand of God.

we, get a little, immune to it, because it happens a lot. but, yeah, that’s what I attribute it to. Yeah. people who don’t believe in God have difficulty accepting that and they find, they try to create other ways to understand it, but, that’s just the way, it’s just the way it rolls when you work for God.

Matt Kane: I want to back up a little bit and talk about that day specifically. What was that day like from your vantage point? How did you find yourself on stage that day to begin with and where were you when the shooting took place? What did you see?

Priest Jason Charron: I, got a call from the Trump, campaign. and, so I arrived, around three o’clock, a little before three o’clock.

And, did the preliminary work of getting to where they want you to be and you, they go over this, you go through security and, a, an overview of where to stand, where to sit, when to walk and, and all of that. and then, we waited, and then we opened the rally with a prayer and, the beautiful thing is that they didn’t micromanage it, they didn’t tell.

me, what to say, how long to pray, who to pray for, didn’t ask me to see what I had prepared, nothing. And so that was a, a great indication of, the kind of, trust that they have. and then, at the event itself, the actual shooting, I spoke with, President Trump about 25 minutes before that happened.

spoke to him about, the situation in Ukraine and Russia, and my concerns as a Ukrainian Catholic priest. and then, just before he went on stage, I, excused myself because I, had, a prior engagement and, there was no way I was going to, get to that engagement, fighting with traffic with the thousands of people there.

And as I was leaving, the, the stage area, I went over, as you mentioned, and spoke to a smaller, concentration of people, about, about the need to pray for protection. and then I proceeded, to keep walking towards, I’d say the back third or back quarter of the crowd.

and that’s, when the, the shooting happened

Matt Kane: and we’ve heard so many people, including President Trump himself, state that it was God alone who saved him that day. And now I know many people who and I’m in no way ridiculing them. I’m just simply bring something to attention who pray along with prayers during services or in this case a rally.

But they’re under the impression they’re just throwing words into the air and they don’t really think too deeply about it. Some people, not all, obviously. But of course there is power in prayer. So if you could, I’d like for you to explain the power it has and the effect the angelic realm has on our daily lives.

Priest Jason Charron: thank you. That’s a great question. And, it’s an unseen world that, really, people ignore to their own peril. we’re surrounded by, unseen powers, principalities, angelic and demonic. And we, neglect prayer to our own detriment. God infinitely perfect and good in himself does not need our prayers, in any way, shape or form.

but we need those prayers, we need those prayers because it’s through them that we are connected to the source of life and light and wisdom. And the extent to which we don’t pray is the extent to which the flower cuts itself off from the sun or the extent to which the preborn child, cuts off its own umbilical cord before, before birth.

so that’s the influence that prayer has over us is that it, weakens our passions. It strengthens our docility or openness, to God’s promptings. It, it invites into our soul, something called grace, God’s own inner life, like your car has fuel. and our soul, the fuel that our soul runs on is God’s grace, his own inner stuff in his life.

And, prayer, the sacraments, fasting, doing acts of kindness, those are all means to give ourselves an injection. and when we are at public events, if we simply unite ourselves, to those prayers, then we benefit from them. We don’t even have to be terribly active in, the, in, prayers like that.

Simply to be resigned to the good intention of the one leading the prayer. And open to receiving, God’s gift. And that’s all. It’s just, it’s an openness and a receptivity, to God at that moment. And that’s, what happened, on July 13th. Is that there, there were people who, were receptive to that.

And, unfortunately, there was at least one person who wasn’t.

Matt Kane: Now, Matthew 7, 8 tells us that everyone who asks receives, everyone who searches finds, everyone who knocks will have the door open. That’s a guarantee, which means, like you said, it’s on us to receive. What are the different ways that people can hear God?

Is it always so clear as it is for you or people in the priesthood? How do we know when he’s telling us something versus just a random thought we’re unsure of where it’s coming from?

Priest Jason Charron: Yeah, life with God is like married life. there’s the extraordinary day of your marriage. it comes once in a lifetime.

and then there’s the ordinary day of married life. and it’s, daily, and the same and same with regard to, how do we know the promptings of, the Holy Spirit? there are the extraordinary times in one’s life, which come once a life in a lifetime. for some mystics, they come a little more than that, but they are supernatural, and, the heavens are opened up.

You think of, I think Matthew 17 with the, transfiguration. But for most people in most days of their lives, God’s will is revealed through a habit of prayer in which the heart is moved. And the second way is that through being disposed to God in a life of virtue that you’re more perceptive of it.

The third way is through reading scripture. He gives us direction. in, in the reading of scripture. the fourth way is that he, speaks to us through legitimate authority in our life. Children through their parents, priests through his bishop, a wife through her husband. and then the fifth way is what the secularists would call coincidence.

I like to call it God incidents. but these are the, the flashing lights that stop us on the road. And the, probability of these things happening is just, is one in a hundred trillion. but when these things happen in a day, they cause us, to pause, to reflect, and to see the hand of God in these things.

So those are the God instances. So those are the five ways that God usually speaks, to us.

Matt Kane: Now there are two dueling schools of thought amongst the Christian community that I’ve observed over the last couple years regarding how God judges nations and its people. One side seems to believe that people, I should say in America right now, us as a people are victims of an unethical government that we’re living under and as long as we keep praying and joining those prayers with action that God will bring about positive change.

But the other side believes that We are responsible for our circumstances or, to a certain extent deserve this bad period of time because America has turned its back on God over the past decades. To me, there’s a key distinction between government leaders and the people. Our government has undoubtedly acted horrifically in many aspects, but many times government leaders often acquire power through Legitimate ways, just look at Kamala Harris being anointed the nominee without a single vote.

I want to know, how does God judge a nation? Is it more about the people or is it about those in positions of leadership and power? Great question.

Priest Jason Charron: I think, God judges a people, a nation, by the way her people treat their orphans, their widows, their poor. and, that’s, quite clear in the, writings of St.

Paul that, the, sorry, in James, that, the, the, gauge of, of, a people is, the way that they, deal with the, most vulnerable and the most innocent. and if they, continue. In this obstinate refusal to love what they can, to refuse to love what they can see, then it’s a manifestation that they really don’t love the one they cannot see.

this obstinance in, sin towards, the poor. the most vulnerable, I think, of, the, pre born little babies and girls that we’ve, slaughtered in, in blood sacrifice to. Moloch, indicates that, the nation as a whole is most likely involved in idolatry. and at that point, we’re given the, leaders we, deserve.

And I know that’s a cliche, but it’s a reflection of a biblical reality. That, we see with Israel, that when, Israel was unfaithful. they were given unfaithful kings, and, so that, that’s where we are right now is I think that, yes, that, segment of the population you outlined who believe that we need to continue being prayerful and faithful is, true, but there’s also the other side of it, which we Catholics call, making reparation.

So you can pray, you can be sorry. but you have to make reparation. You broke the widow’s window. You have to, replace it. And, that means being involved for, especially for the lay faithful, being involved in the political process. You don’t like what corrupt men have done to the system. you cannot just absent yourself from it.

You have to be involved in correcting those wrongs. And that may mean losing your. Your freedom, it may mean going to prison, but it may mean being killed. But Jesus was in both of those categories. He was in prison. He was killed. John the Baptist, the greatest man born woman, same thing in prison.

He killed Peter, Paul. you’re in great company and, we’re at a point in our nation’s history because we’re a nation under judgment. you cannot kill 65 million babies and not be under judgment. That, we need to make reparation to God.

Matt Kane: And how do we do that as a nation, do you think?

Does it, does that come from the people or do, does that come from leadership? Should we be relying on them so much or is it more amongst the people to take, make these reparations amongst themselves?

Priest Jason Charron: I want to be very, honest and upfront and, the corruption in the highest levels of our government does not stay there.

It is in our churches too. And so if the faithful are going to wait, for direction from the shepherds, they’re going to be waiting for a very long time. Last time I checked, Cardinal McCarrick was not excommunicated for what he did. and so we are, in the midst of a dark period in secular and church history.

and at that point, we have a unique offering. And that unique offering is, the laity are going to lead the charge that’s almost never happened in church history. There’ve been a very few cases of that. but this is perhaps the most, urgent time in church history for the laity to lead that, charge.

the way that I think it’s best to do this, to answer your question directly is, through what I’ve already started is, a national, or sanctuary of reparation, because it has to begin liturgically. We cannot vote ourselves out of this hell hole, this hellscape. We cannot, entertain ourselves out of it by making nice movies like angel studios do.

We cannot, get judgments from our courts out of this situation. all of these things are downstream from, faith. And faith at its core is defined by cult, worship, and, so to answer your question, I believe it involves raising up a holy altar like Exodus 17 with Moses and the banner altar.

Like Isaiah did, sorry, like Elijah did, it involves raising up an altar to make, a restoration to God, as a sacrifice, we Catholics and Orthodox believe that is a Eucharistic sacrifice, a re presentation of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross in atonement for the sins of our land. And I, as a priest, am convinced that’s the only way forward, is to, have a holy sanctuary, we’re calling it the Holy Protection of the Mother of God.

Shrine here in Pittsburgh. And, it is to be the spiritual epicenter of reparation to God for our nation’s sins against life and family. that’s the building block of a society. It’s the cell, it’s the family. And if we’ve sinned against that, then we have to, restore that. And everything is downstream from that politics, culture, elections, schools.

It all begins by making reparation to God.

Matt Kane: It’s such a heavy time. Everything you’ve just described, I think most people would agree that they feel it. It’s almost palpable. You could feel it in the air. it’s a dark time, but I hope, hopefully through prayer, we can get through it and have a better country for ourselves.

I want to thank you very much for joining me today, Father. I’m thankful for all that you’re doing to bring people closer to Christ. Thanks for joining me today. God bless you.

Priest Jason Charron: God bless you. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Matt Kane: And to all of our listeners out there, be sure to like and subscribe so that you don’t miss any of AMAC’s incredible content.

I’m Matt Kane. Until next time.

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