Savannah Guthrie’s visit to the “Today” show studio on Thursday was marked by what colleagues described as a “spontaneous prayer” right behind the anchor desk.
It was the first time Guthrie had returned to the studio since her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home on Feb. 1.
Meteorologist Dylan Dreyer, who is a practicing Catholic, led a group of colleagues in a prayer.
“You know it felt like the right moment for all of us,” Dreyer said on Friday.
The “Today” show team thinks of itself as a family, she added, and that many had already been praying privately for Guthrie and her loved ones.
“Why not hold hands and send up one big prayer to God, ask for a miracle. He wants to feel needed. So we asked for that miracle.
“If you don’t ask, you don’t receive.”
Co-host Craig Melvin joked that Dreyer was not only a certified meteorologist, but “also apparently a pastor in training.”
This prayer and the love was a gift to Guthrie, Dreyer said.
The “spontaneous” prayer unfolded just behind the anchor desk, with roughly a hundred people gathered in the studio. Guthrie stood in the center of the group and spoke emotionally to her colleagues.
“She said the most perfect words you could ever imagine,” said co-host Carson Daly, who added that the bond among the cast and crew goes beyond television. They are not just acting friendly for the cameras, he said, but they really “do life together.”
On Thursday, Guthrie briefly returned to the “Today” studios for the first time since her 84-year-old mother disappeared on Feb. 1. Addressing her colleagues, she said she hopes to return to the show but is still figuring out what that will look like.
“I have every intention of coming back,” Guthrie told them. “I don’t know how to come back, but I don’t know how not to. You’re my family. And I would like to try.”
She went on to hug everyone in the studio.
Faith has been a recurring theme in the weeks since Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
“I’m holding onto my faith,” Guthrie shared. “I still believe. And as my mom would say, ‘Where else would I go?’”
Prayer has also surfaced on the broadcast itself. Two weeks ago, while interviewing the new archbishop of New York Ronald Hicks, Melvin asked him to pray during a live segment.
Melvin said the spirit simply “moved” him to ask if Hicks could lead the hosts in a “brief prayer.” Hicks bowed his head and prayed that God would “be with Savannah” and “be with her mom.”
“Bring hope, peace, some resolution to all of this,” he said.