The Child at Play

As an image of the Trinity, this one is hard to top. Is it the Holy Spirit? The Son? Well, the correct answer is "Yes" though we have to make some elaborate clarifications so as not to tip into heresy.

Thus says the wisdom of God:
"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.

"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race."

Brant Pitre from the Sacred Page unpacks this:

What do we say about Jesus? The Gospel of John says that he is the only begotten son (monogenēs). It never calls him the “created” Son. And secondly, in the creed, the Church takes that language and says about the Son:
“we believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, begotten of the Father from all ages (so notice, “begotten from all ages”, so he’s eternally begotten), God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten (that’s the Catholic faith), not made (that’s the Arian heresy).
So why do we say that every Sunday? Because we’re confessing one thing and rejecting something else. So if he was made (or created), then there was a time when he didn’t exist and he’s just a creature, which means he’s not true God. But if he’s begotten from all eternity, before all ages, what does that mean? That means he is eternally being begotten of the Father. In other words, he’s eternally (so-to-speak) “coming from the Father as a Son”. So the Father is always Father and the Son is always Son, and they’re both true God because they’re both eternal, divine persons. That’s what we’re confessing in the creed. So, on further reflection, I actually love that the Church picks Proverbs 8 for the 1st reading for this Feast of the Trinity, because it gives us an opportunity to explain who Jesus is as the eternal wisdom, as the eternal Son, who is eternally begotten of the Father, that never began. Although in our experience a son is begotten in time (he has a beginning), in the triune God, that “begetting” takes place from all eternity. Now, can we wrap our brain around that? No, because we can’t wrap our brain around eternity. But we can confess the truth of it, that there was never a time when he was not...https://catholicproductions.com/blogs/mass-readings-explained-year-c/the-solemnity-of-the-most-holy-trinity-year-c

Here it's clear that the child at play, or the master craftsman is the Only Begotten Son. Yet, I can't help going to this as a perfect image of the Holy Spirit, the action verb of the Trinity (Lover LOVING the Beloved), who is always depicted in motion: a dove in flight, a flame burning, a wind breathing, etc.

When we think of the child at play, taking delight in the creation all around, this is also an image of movement and action consistent with all the others depictions of the Holy Spirit in scripture.

When I teach it to children this way, not only do we eschew the whole explanation of Arianism, which is not at grade level, but they also gain an image of the Trinity that seems more relatable and more complete somehow: they know what it feels like to take delight in the world around them, and when they have those moments,  I hope they think of God.

The NRSVCE translation and its footnotes offer another way to chew on this infamous passage from Proverbs (taken from BibleGateway), especially footnote d:

22 The Lord created me at the beginning[a] of his work,[b]
    the first of his acts of long ago.
23 Ages ago I was set up,
    at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
    when there were no springs abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
    before the hills, I was brought forth—
26 when he had not yet made earth and fields,[c]
    or the world’s first bits of soil.
27 When he established the heavens, I was there,
    when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 when he made firm the skies above,
    when he established the fountains of the deep,
29 when he assigned to the sea its limit,
    so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
30     then I was beside him, like a master worker;[d]
and I was daily his[e] delight,
    rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
    and delighting in the human race.

Footnotes:
a.Proverbs 8:22 Or me as the beginning
b. Proverbs 8:22 Heb way
c. Proverbs 8:26 Meaning of Heb uncertain
d. Proverbs 8:30 Another reading is little child
e. Proverbs 8:30 Gk: Heb lacks his