St. Patrick's Day Trinity Reflection - March 17, 2021
I’m sure many of us have heard of the analogy of the shamrock, the 3-leaf clover, as a way to imagine God: there are 3 leaves but one plant.
I remember hearing this analogy from when I was very young.
My great-grandparents were immigrants from Ireland. They came from Ireland in the early 1900s, met, and had my grandmother and her sister.
When I was little, my dad worked 3 jobs to support our family and for a few years we lived with our grandparents. Even though I was no older than 4 years old, I have some of the most vivid, beautiful memories of that time.
I remember my grandmother used to take my sister and I to this big, beautiful tree across the street from their house. It was on the property of a public elementary school but we were always welcome to come to the tree.
There were plenty of clovers in the grass and my grandmother (Nanny, as we call her) would pick many of them and she would call my sister and I over to her. She would say, “you see this? This is how you can understand God. He is 3 persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But He is one God”.
I remember my little brain couldn’t really wrap my mind around it, but I could tell it was important to my Nanny and so it was important to me.
Because of this, the doctrine of the Trinity has always been special to me. My Nanny is now suffering in late stages of Alzheimer’s. She has her good and bad days. She lives in New Jersey so I don’t get to see her that often and I don’t know if she remembers me.
However. She taught me, from my earliest days, about God. I would say that she is one of the main reasons that I am Catholic and practicing my faith and in love with God today.
The Trinity is difficult to understand, it’s why we call it a “mystery”. We will never fully understand it in this lifetime; but God loves us despite our lack of understanding. He has something to teach us and tell us in each member of His Trinity. Just like I didn’t understand when Nanny told me about the Trinity, I saw her love and the importance of it. And I believed and haven’t stopped believing.
May we have that same love and trust in our Heavenly Father, who loves us more than any earthly person can and may we say, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!”
(Reposted from Trinity Sunday 2020.)