What is the link between fasting and the friends of the bridegroom?

Why did Christ our Lord say, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Matt. 9:15)? The purpose of fasting is to admit us to the Bridegroom’s presence where we can enjoy the wedding through repentance. For if the Bridegroom Himself is present, why should they fast? But when He ascends bodily and leaves them, then the Church fasts adorning herself for His second coming when she will be united with Him in the eternal wedding. As long as the Bridegroom is ascended, we do not see Him in the flesh, and we must fast from every pleasure and luxury that we may attain the superior heavenly nourishment, and exalted glories whose essence is union with the Bridegroom Himself. St. Basil the Great believes that fasting lifts the soul up to heaven, “as if it were its wings for the upwards journey” and it is “adornment for seniors, a good companion on journeys.”⁴¹⁸

If one visits his brother after a long absence that lasted for decades, and the visit was unexpected so that his brother was eating when he came, would we not expect the brother to leave what he is eating, no matter how hungry he was, to embrace his brother? What a joyful surprise this would be! Likewise, by fasting we leave our tables, not as way of asceticism, but more because of our preoccupation with the Heavenly One, that we may encounter Him, enter into sweet conversation with Him, express our longing for Him, and escape the distractions of our bodily needs.