Austin likewise says: " No one fasts for human praise, but for the pardon of his sins." So also St. Bernard in his 66th Sermon on the Canticles: " I often fast, and my fasting is a satisfaction for sin, not a superstition for impiety."
Lastly, fasting is meritorious, and is very powerful in obtaining divine favours. Anna, the wife of Eleanor, although she was barren, deserved by fasting to have a son. So St. Jerome, in his second book against Jovinian, thus interprets these words of Scripture: "She wept and did not take food, and thus Anna by her abstinence deserved to bring forth a son." Sara, by a three days fast, was delivered from a devil, as we read in the book of To bias. But there is a remarkable passage in the Gospel of St. Matthew on fasting: " But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face. That thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret, will repay thee." (chap. vi. 17, 18.) The words "will repay thee," signify will give thee a reward; for they are opposed to these other words, "For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast. Amen, I say to you. that they have received their reward." Wherefore, hypocrites by their fasting, receive their re ward, that is, human praise: the just by fasting receive their reward also, the divine praise. Many are the testimonies of the
