The great Doctor of the Church St.
Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise De Trinitate
[about the Holy Trinity], endeavouring to conceive an intelligible explanation
for the mystery of the Trinity.
Augustine was walking by the seashore
one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity
when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the
seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and
place it into a small hole in the sand.
The Bishop of Hippo approached him and
asked, “My boy, what are doing?”
“I am trying to bring all the sea into
this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile.
“But that is impossible, my dear
child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine.
The boy paused in his work, stood up,
looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than
what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy
Trinity with your small intelligence.”
The Saint was absorbed by such a keen
response from that child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When
he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished.
Some say that it was an Angel sent by
God to teach Augustine a lesson on pride in learning. Others affirm it was the
Christ Child Himself who appeared to the Saint to remind him of the limits of
human understanding before the great mysteries of our Faith.
