How does one explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to children? Blessed Epiphany chalk was used to protect ho... 20-year-old filmmaker wins award for powerful... © Copyright Aleteia SAS all rights reserved. The Anthropological Analogy. Then bring in the concept of God as a loving being who looks after them and wants the best for them, just like their parents. It also provides an easy way to share the gospel with your kids. However, each form is different and serves different purposes. The prayer expresses the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, that God reveals himself … Thus, the Holy Spirit is revealed in Scripture to possess the same infinite and divine nature as does the Father and the Son. To help your children name them themselves, suggest that they make the sign of the cross. Why? As I explain in my Trinity children’s book, Teach Catholic Kids About The Trinity, we can use these things to help us think about the Trinity, but none of them are really exactly like the Trinity. Even young children know them. Some use math to explain the Holy Trinity. 3. When you cut an apple in half, you can see that each of these three parts are different (at this point, you can cut the apple open for your kids!). More Grace-Filled Confidence. Here are a few of the illustrations: One popular and simple illustration of the Trinity is the egg. As we gaze upon the Holy Trinity, we see that God is love: the Father loves the Son who loves the Father, and from this love the Holy Spirit flows forth. What a great lesson! ;). We call this the Trinity or triune nature of God, because trinity or triune* means having three parts. A Lesson on the Trinity A wonderful way to encourage children to see the work of the Holy Trinity is to use Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity. The understanding that God is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – Three in One. No one of them is more important or more divine than the others. The Trinity is one of them. Each petal on the clover represents an entity of God. Thank you! When speaking to children, we all too often notice that, while they may certainly picture one God, they envision him as the sole Person of the Father. Without committing heresy. Why not try together to think of other words that begin with the prefix “tri,” like “tricycle,” for example. Grab an apple and share these five truths with your kids: It’s a simple, no-prep Biblical lesson, but it’s really effective, especially when you don’t have a lot of time to devote to a long lesson, but really want to help your kids drive this faith lesson home into their hearts! by Alistair Begg and more articles about Video Answers and Videos on Christianity.com It’s ridiculous to think it’s true” — then we remain within the confines of our very limited intelligence, with a ground-level view of reality. So are the persons of God all different (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), yet they are ALL God. From their childhood, Catholics learn to pray the sign of the cross: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”. - Train Up The Child, Thanksgiving Bible Verse Printable 8×10 Posters, Free Printable Thank You God Coloring Pages {for Kids!}. Encourage your children to experience the Trinity: One of the best arguments for the Trinity is Christian experience. It may suggest to them something like the spiritual part of Jesus, and nothing more. That can’t exist. Can you explain the Trinity to me? It only takes a minute. Meet the dad who's teaching basic skills on Y... 8 Ways to honor the Holy Name of Jesus this J... How the Virgin Mary can guide your new year. We’ve all seen the pictures of St. Patrick holding the three-leaved shamrock…and it’s supposed to represent the Trinity. The biggest problem with explaining the Trinity to kids is the fact that it is a mystery. They will quickly realize that they are actually addressing three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so we must use our intelligence, in all humility, recognizing its limitations. With God, it’s different: He is three Persons in one God. Mic drop. If one believes, if one accepts to recognize a superior reality, one can then enter into the Mystery. Plus, the shamrock really isn’t the best way to describe this relationship between the persons of God. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Through faith, we can get a glimpse of the Holy Trinity, and contemplate it as we await the day when we will see it face to face. The Trinity: God is one God who eternally exists in three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all of whom are fully God, all of whom are equal. There is an ancient Trinitarian diagram, often called the “Shield of the Trinity,” … As an adult Christian, I receptively accepted it, but a mind's child cannot grasp the eminence of the Holy Trinity. We must also add: three Persons who love one another. A: The Bible shows very clearly that there is only one God, and yet that there are three personal distinctions in His complex nature, traditionally referred to as “three Persons in the Godhead”—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This truth is too hard for us to truly understand while we are here on Earth. Start by talking about the word “Trinity” itself. Teaching the Trinity to children doesn’t have to be confusing and complicated! Unsubscribe anytime. Success! St. Patrick used a shamrock to explain how the Holy Trinity works. On the contrary, if God gave man intelligence, it was so he make use of it and develop it in all domains. 20 million users around the world read Aleteia.org every month, Aleteia is published every day in eight languages: English, French, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Slovenian, Each month, readers view more than 50 million pages, Nearly 4 million people follow Aleteia on social media, Each month, we publish 2,450 articles and around 40 videos, We have 60 full time staff and approximately 400 collaborators (writers, translators, photographers, etc. “But can you teach me how to explain this to my children?” At Mass, the priest’s prayers frequently mention the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as well.The reason for this is that Catholics believe that God is not merely Unity (as all monotheists believe), but also Trinity. For the same reason, we must be very clear when speaking to children: certain terms, while correct in and of themselves, can be ambiguous to little ones. But it’s not always easy for kids to understand just HOW a small green clover relates to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. }, How to Get Your Kids to Respect the Word ‘No’, How to Talk to Your Kids about Good Friday, How Can St. Patrick's Day Teach Us About Forgiveness? We'll never share it with anyone. Your email address will not be published. This will help your child realise that the Holy Spirit brings His people joy, love, and peace. We cannot think of the Holy Trinity as a sum of three parts (1 + 1 + 1 = 3), but instead, show how each part multiplies the others to form a wonderful whole (1 x 1 x 1 = 1). Of course, it’s always the same unique God, but it’s good to be familiar with all three Persons. When my daughter was 5 we talked about the Trinity, and she explained to me that it’s a hard doctrine for little kids (like her younger brother) to understand, and that it’s only older kids (like her) who truly understand it. When a woman is cooking dinner, that event is a form of the Divine Trinity. And when it comes to the Trinity, there are many analogies to choose from. Read more:5 Ancient symbols of the Trinity, Read more:The Holy Trinity as imagined in sacred art. It’s an unbelievably easy object lesson for teaching young kids about the Trinity. But it’s not always easy for kids to understand just HOW a small green clover relates to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Analogy is the theologian’s best friend in explaining the mysteries of the Faith. Who are they? To be fair, there’s still a good lesson to be learned from Patrick and his decision to use the shamrock to explain the Trinity: we can use every day objects to point to our Creator, connecting faith to tangible things we can see and understand. There are three Persons, but one God. We can never fully understand it but we can and should grow in our understanding of it. Mom, Dad, and a child are three persons, three individuals. In my book, I help kids walk through the process of how are these things like the Trinity, and how are they not like the Trinity. The skin is like God the Father because He protects us. Explaining the Holy Trinity of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit will be needed at some point when presenting the God of the Bible to children, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses and other non-believers. We need you. Uh oh. Required fields are marked *. Thank you! Brilliant! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I feel blessed for having found you! The meaning of the Holy Trinity is just this infinite love continually flowing between three Persons. I’m going to try this with my grandchildren! “All three Persons in the Trinity have relational names. This book is best for ages 4 and up, because that’s really when the concept of Father, Son and Holy Spirit starts to roll around in our kids’ minds. It’s important to insist on this truth which, in addition to understanding it with our minds, requires the adherence of our faith. For her, he was a secondary figure, a kind of servant of God. The seeds are like God the Holy Spirit because He through His power, we grow in faith. The top petal is God. When a child plays the piano or when a baby crawls, all of these movements are in the form of the triangle of reality or the Holy Trinity. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”—these are words we use every time we pray the Sign of the Cross. Trinitarian Diagram. Another hands on food to show the trinity! Those three persons are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I hope this lesson and book are helpful to you in teaching the concept of the Trinity to your children–without a shamrock! All three persons are equally God. Water is another way to explain the Trinity. Learning to Choose Well. In the next few blogs, I am going to be sharing some ideas that I learned as a child. If, in the face of the mystery of one God in three Persons, we say to ourselves: “That’s impossible. We can teach children the inerrancy of Scripture by simply saying, “The Bible Is True.” We can explain something of the atonement by saying, “Jesus paid for our sins and is alive forever.” The Trinity, though, is another matter. Of course, children can’t fully comprehend the mystery of the Holy Trinity (its hard enough for adults!). And the same goes for the Second Person in the Trinity. As you can imagine, these numbers represent a lot of work. 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