Is the Virgin Mary ever referred to as "the Holy Table" (ἡ ἁγία ἡ τράπεζα)?

Question

I'm still in the process of translating a work of John of Damascus concerning the Eucharist and the body of Christ, entitled Περὶ τοῦ ἀχράντου σώματος, οὗ μεταλαμβάνομεν.

In section 4, he writes,

Ἐκεῖ ἦν ἡ ἁγία Παρθένος ἡ τράπεζα, ἔχουσα τὴν ὕλην τοῦ σώματος.

My tendency is to translate this as, "There was the holy table, the Virgin, bearing the matter of the body." It's talking about the virgin Mary bearing Christ in her womb, and that Christ assumed flesh from her.

However, the phrase ἡ ἁγία Παρθένος ἡ τράπεζα puzzled me. Is Mary ever referred to as "the holy table" (ἡ ἁγία ἡ τράπεζα) in Catholic doctrine?

Answer 1

Part of the Litany of the Holy Name of Mary:

Mary, house of God, pray for us
Mary, sanctuary of the Lord, pray for us
Mary, altar of the Divinity, pray for us
Mary, Virgin Mother, pray for us
Mary, embracing your Infant God, pray for us

The Holy Table would be the altar. Calling the altar the Holy Table is mostly an Eastern Catholic and Orthodox thing. You might look up something like the History of the Christian Altar to help decide which translation is best, or see if he uses a different word for altar.

Answer 2

One point I always like to stress to my Catechism class because I think it really shows a lot about who Jesus and Mary are is that she is, as the Litany of Loreto says, the

Ark of the Covenant

The Ark held God within it and physically held a few mementos of desert wanderings (According to the tradition the Book of Hebrews uses in 9:4)

which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.

In a material way, the ark, contained the three items that represent Christ's three-fold office of Priest, Prophet and King. And Mary is called the Ark of the New Covenant because she held Christ within her.

Now, I don't know much about Greek, but is τράπεζα used in any other context to mean table? Is it a Latin cognate or something? If I put the word into Google, I just get a bunch of Greek banks (which isn't worth much)

If you go with the bank translation you've got

Spiritual vessel,

Vessel of honor,

Singular vessel of devotion,

...

House of gold,

and that might be a more likely starting point.