June 18, 2025
Three Limericks on the Trinity
This past Sunday was the first Sunday after Pentecost, which is celebrated as Trinity Sunday. The Trinity (Father-Son-Holy Spirit) is deceptively challenging, this concept of the three persons in one God. We treat the Trinity as a heady topic. And it is.
And it is one of the heart. Maybe more. And that part gets skipped, getting stuck in our heads. And the heart begins with joy and a chance at some fun.
I welcome you into the fun with three limericks on the Trinity, from Faith in grey places.
Student #1
I wanted to study the Trinity
For my PhD in divinity.
But my little grey cells
Were unable to delve
The mysteries of triune infinity.
Student #2
They say don’t say much on the Trinity
Lest you show a human affinity
For getting it wrong.
Student #3
Whenever you ponder the Trinity
Keep wisdom in your vicinity,
For these masters of art
Only show you their heart
When you cloak yourself with all humility.
[1] De Trinitate, Book 1, Chapter 3, 5. Translation by Arthur West Haddon available on Logos Library: http://www.logoslibrary.org/augustine/trinity/0103.html
Trinity Sunday
by Malcolm Guite
In the Beginning, not in time or space,
But in the quick before both space and time,
In Life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace,
In three in one and one in three, in rhyme,
In music, in the whole creation story,
In His own image, His imagination,
The Triune Poet makes us for His glory,
And makes us each the other’s inspiration.
He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,
To improvise a music of our own,
To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,
Three notes resounding from a single tone,
To sing the End in whom we all begin;
Our God beyond, beside us and within.
