The Trinity

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches is that “God is a bottomless well, and the understanding of God as Trinity is both the heart of the mystery and the very definition of Christianity” (CCC 234).

Saint Patrick used a shamrock when trying to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity. Perhaps better still is the icon of the Trinity created by a fifteenth-century Russian monk, Andrei Rublev.

Drawing from the Genesis account about Abraham and Sarah and the hospitality they extended to the three strangers who visited them in the desert, Rublev’s icon is the embodiment of the Paschal Mystery. The three strangers seated around the table represent the Trinity. It is a testimony to the New Covenant that is Jesus, through whom Abraham’s table became a Eucharistic altar. We are invited to the altar, the table of hospitality.