The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on December 12, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
Relatively early on in the Christian family, teaching and tradition took to naming the Holy One as Trinity. In order to account for the lived experience and subsequent understanding of those who knew Jesus of Nazareth in the flesh, yet heard him proclaim he was One with the Holy One, the three persons were not only named as Father, Son, and Spirit, but their relationship to each other was defined through roles and activity. The first person, Creator, Source of all things. The second person, Redeemer, in taking on flesh. The third person, Sanctifier or Sustainer in Love.
Over time, new Christian communities would continue to thread the tradition of identifying names and actions for the Three Persons. Gertrude the Great regularly identified the Father with omnipotence, the Son with wisdom, and the Spirit with love, charity or justice. Julian of Norwich also played with designations of three, often attributing the quality of Truth and the activity of creation to the first person, the quality of Wisdom and the activity of offering of oneself to the second person, and the quality of Goodness and the activity of protecting to the third person. In our own time, Cyprian Consiglio assigns another trio of names to the three persons: Abyss/Silence to the first person, Manifestation/Word to the second person, and Dynamism/Song to the third person.
Practically, playing with threes in our prayer, by both assigning names or images, as well as activities to each of the three persons of the Trinity helps to keep the relational quality of our prayer alive. Rather than get stuck in just one name to address God, or one role for God, or one activity of God, the dynamic dialogue of naming the three persons of divinity keeps us attentive to the Presence of the Holy One as alive and involved, not dead and distant, hidden away in potentially stagnant code or creed.
Similarly, playing with the threes in our prayer points to the human side of the relationship and further instructs us in our own activity. For example, I have named the three postures of spaciousness, suppleness, and surrender as part of my contemplative prayer practice. To play with these as three, I can ask blessing from the Font of Being in the first person, to help me be open to Mystery through spaciousness. I can ask blessing from the Font of Holy Flesh, incarnate, in the second person to learn how to navigate the flow of life through suppleness. I can ask blessing from the Dynamic Penetrator of all things, the third person, for strength and power to give my all, my whole self, in surrender.
What threes might you prayer with? May we all play in our prayer within the Power, Presence, and Love of threes!
