why that relaxation of the fast is completed on the fiftieth day after it, here's the
120 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS chastened may fulfill its military service, and the spirit by being humbled may obtain the victory. So then, in the case of the example set by the Lord, the cause of his fasting was not his having been dipped in the Jordan, but his being about to be tempted by the devil.
Why we fast before Easter
4. Now as to why we fast before the solemnity of the Lord's passion, and why that relaxation of the fast is completed on the fiftieth day after it, here's the reason. People who fast in the right way are either humbling their souls by groaning and sighing in prayer and chastening the body with an unfeigned faith (1 Tm 1:5); or else are withdrawing their intention from fleshly enticements by a kind of spiritual neediness yearning for the delights of truth and wisdom, and directing it downward to actually experiencing hunger and thirst.13 About each of these kinds of fasting the Lord gave an answer to those who asked him why his disciples didn't fast.
About the first, which has to do with the humbling of the soul, The sons of the bridegroom, he said, cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them. But the time is coming when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. About the other sort, which provides a feast for the mind, he went on to say this: No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment, lest a greater rent should be made; nor do they pour new wine into old wineskins, lest the skins should burst, and the wine be spilled; but they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved (Mt 9:15-17). Hence, because the bridegroom has now been taken away, we as sons of such a lovely bridegroom of course have to mourn. He, you see, though handsome offigure above the sons of men, with grace poured out on his lips (Ps 45:2), had neither beauty nor comeliness in the hands of his persecutors, and his life was taken away from the earth.14 And we are right to mourn, if we are on fire with desire for him.
Blessed were those who were privileged to have him present among them before his passion, to ask him whatever they liked, and to listen to him as they ought to listen. The fathers desired to see thdse days before his coming, and did not see them; because their lot was to belong to another dispensation, in which they were to foretell his future coming, not to listen to him when he came. He speaks about them to the disciples, you remember, when he says, Many just men and prophets have wished to see the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things you hear, and have not heard them (Mt 13:17). In us, though, there has been fulfilled a similar thing he said: The days are coming, when you will long to see one of these days, and will not be able to (Lk 17:22).
Why we have to fast and pray
5. Who wouldn't be on fire with the flame of such a holy desire? Who wouldn't mourn here in this world? Who wouldn't groan and sigh and say, My tears have become my bread night and day, while they say to me all day long,