Page:Ninety-nine homilies of S. Thomas Aquinas upon the epistles and gospels for forty-nine Sundays of the Christian year (IA ninetyninehomili00thom).pdf/112

 he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully, and shall obtain eternal lifeto which may we be brought, &c.

The heavenly blessedness, as the saints teach, is understood by this supper. But it is called a “ great supper” for three reasons. Firstly, on account of the multitude of those who celebrate this supper ; secondly, on account of the dishes of meat which are given there in abundance; thirdly, on account of the eternity of the supper itself.

I. On the first head it is called great for a threefold reason. (1) By reason of those who make it. The makers are the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible ; and therefore They make an immense or incomprehensible supper. Isai. xxv. 6, “ And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees of fat things, full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” Esth. i. 3, of Ahasuerus : “ In the third year of his reign he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants,” &c. (2) By reason of those ministering, who are thousands of thousands—Dan. vii. 10, “Thousand thousands ministered unto him.” (3) By reason of the guests, who were ten thousand times ten thousand—Dan. vii. 10, “Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.”

II. On the second head this is called a great supper because there will be there a thousand thousand of dishes. The dishes are the joys in life eternal; and because there are in heaven a thousand thousand of joys, there were at the “ great supper” a thousand thousand dishes. But we are here able to fix upon three great dishes. (1) There will be a dish of joy by