Sharing Life Experience

Many Christians know and love the Trinity icon written by Andrei Rublev in the 15th century. The icon pictures the three visitors to the tent of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18. The visitors come to assure our ancestors in faith that Sarah will have a child, that God will keep the promise that their descendants will bless all the families of earth. Abraham and Sarah extend hospitality, seat the visitors at a table, and serve a meal of flour cakes, milk, and veal.

Benedictine Sister Mary Charles McGough also wrote an icon of this scene. In both icons the three visitors, often identified as the Old Testament Trinity, sit in a circle that is open toward the viewer, inviting us into the circle to a seat at the table, inviting us into their relationship.

For a course I helped teach entitled “Heart of God,” we purchased a large print icon of Mary Charles’s icon for our class environment. I lived with the icon on my office wall for several weeks. One day I saw in the icon the same vision that brought me back to the Sisters of St. Joseph after 10 years away.

I had rented a grand apartment, the downstairs of a house with hardwood floors, big front windows, and bay windows in the dining room. I lived with four Sisters of St. Joseph while I readied the new space. They volunteered to make new curtains.

As I was unpacking, three of these sisters came over to hem the curtains. They were long-time friends of one another. At one point their laughter made me look over my shoulder. The three of them sat with curtains on their laps, stitching happily and at the same time yucking it up and enjoying each other.

I saw the icon in them. Their love for each other had room for me. I saw a vision in their friendship of the kind of love I wanted to be a part of. Like the Trinity in the icon their love had room for another and another.

  • What do you see in the Trinity icon?
  • What does the icon help you see in your experience?
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