The Great Commentary of Cornelius À Lapide #220242

Christ in this parable has an allusion to Isa. Xxv. 6, And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined; and Isa. Xxx. 23, 24, Then shall he give the rain Of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures. The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. Learn from hence that Christ always sets before us in the Church a rich spiritual banquet of holy doctrine and grace, abundantly seasoned with sacred lections, sermons, exhortations, and with innumerable examples in every kind of virtue, of Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, with frequent receiving of the Sacra ments, especially the Eucharist, which is the corn of the elect, and the wine that maketh virgins, as Zechariah saith (ix. 17) 3 with the Sacrifice of the Mass, with such great adornment of the sacred ministers, altars, and temples, and with the heavenly harmony of music and organs, and many other things which feed, delight, inebriate the souls of the faithful, so that Christianity is to the pious one continual banquet, according to the words in Isa. Lxvi. 23, The feast of the new moon shall be from one month to another, and from sabbath to sabbath. Lastly, Christ Himself, Incarnate, is the perennial food and joy of the faithful. For He, through the Incarnation, really communi cates to them not only all the gifts of His grace, but Himself, in all His fulness, and therefore His very Deity itself. And this He gives them to taste, to eat, to enjoy, as it is said in S. John vi. 51.