How do we explore the Holy Trinity? I remember the whole shamrock image from my childhood and the flippant comment from Eric Idle in the film ‘Nuns on the run’ that God is like a shamrock ‘small green and split three ways’.
Earlier in the film Robbie Coltrane had a go at explaining the Trinity to his friend. Parts of this was accurate. We can say that God sends his son and that God and Jesus are one. We can say that God and Jesus send the Holy Spirit and that the three are one. But does it make sense? Probably not to a person of no faith.
So how do we explain the Trinity. We say there are 3 persons in one godhead but it is not something you can readily imagine. Perhaps it is that which is intangible that we use in everyday parlance that fits best here. God is love. As such, we have the incarnation and the coming of the Holy Spirit – all emanating from a God who is love. Love – that concept we use and strive for but never fully understand. Within the depth and infinite nature of love perhaps we best understand the Trinity as one aspect of our God. For is in not within our loving relationships that we represent ourselves differently to different people? Just as God is the Father and the Son, so too we can be Mother and Daughter and Friend and yet be one person.
The Female Theologian 