Fr. Michael Williams

Whilst writing his great book, on the Trinity, St Augustine encountered a young boy on the beach who was attempting to put the ocean inside a small bucket. Augustine told him that he was trying to do something that was impossible. The boy replied to Augustine, by telling him, that he was doing something impossible by trying to explain the Blessed Trinity in his book. St Augustine took this lesson on board and came to understand human limitations in regard to speaking about God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. St Augustine would go on to say, ‘If you understand God, it is not God that you understand’. Because whatever we can say or think about God, it always falls infinitely short of who God actually is. Whenever we speak of God, we must acknowledge that we are finite creatures, speaking of an infinite and eternal Being.

A number of the great mystics of the Church have used analogies, or comparisons, to try and help us understand something of the Most Holy Trinity. That great saint of Ancient Briton, St Patrick- who took the faith to Ireland, used the simple shamrock plant as a means of explaining something of the Trinity to the locals. He explained that the shamrock, which has three leaves- but is one plant, tells us something of the Trinitarian nature of God.

Another part of God’s creation, which some of the great saints and mystics of the Church have spoken of, to say something of the Blessed Trinity, are the vast oceans. For example, St. Gregory of Nazianzen said that entering into the mystery of the Holy Trinity, “is like crossing the ocean on a raft”. And the great mystic of Siena, St Catherine, prayed: “O eternal Trinity, You are a deep sea in which the more I seek the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek to know You”.

Another great saint, the Franciscan- Bonaventure, said that the whole of God’s creation has traces and echoes of the Holy Trinity imprinted upon it. So, just as an artist can be known by their works, God who is the supreme artist, can reveal to us something of Himself through His work of creation.

Creation is diverse and mysterious in many ways and so reflects something of the diversity and dynamism of God. The English poet, artist and mystic, William Blake penned in one of his poems, ‘Tyger, Tyger, burning bright…Did He who made the Lamb make thee?’ We cannot understand Creation simplistically, so we certainly cannot understand God simplistically.

So analogies and comparisons can help us grapple with the great mystery of the Trinitarian God whom we worship. But God’s revelation, which comes to us through great Biblical characters like Moses and Paul, also reveals facts to us about God. So it’s a fact, and not an analogy or comparison, to say that God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This fact has been revealed to us by Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He who came down from heaven to enable us to be immersed, to be baptised, into the life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And by receiving God’s Spirit in baptism we can now call out to the Father of all, united with Jesus, ‘Abba, Father’!

To enter into this great mystery and this great fact- or Reality- as the Dean explains it in today’s newsletter- we need to ‘keep God’s laws and commandments’; to observe all the commands that Jesus gives us. By doing this we will quicken on our way, ‘to the land that the Lord your God gives you forever’; to the place of peace and rest in the heart of the Blessed Trinity, who is both ancient and new forever.