How can I repay the Lord

for his goodness to me?

The cup of salvation I will raise;

I will call on the Lord's name.

My vows to the Lord I will fulfill

before all his people.

O precious in the eyes of the Lord

is the death of his faithful.

What soul truly believes in God's overflowing love for it?  Such belief in God's love is the motivation for love, suffering and sanctity which all the saints had.  "We desire to love God because God first loved us."  I believe that many do not want to open their hearts to the possibility of a belief in God's overflowing, unconditional love because they fear they cannot return such love.  Would God ask for our love if he knew it couldn't satisfy him?  Would he ask for our love if he truly did not want it in the depths of his divine heart, if he did not thirst for it?  Jesus groaned "I thirst" but it was not for wine, dear reader, but your love.

Once the first anxiety of doubting God love passes, the second one arrives.  "How can I return God's love?"  Such a divine love, such a holy love, such a pure love, such an unconditional, overflowing love... oh, how can I return that?  The good news is -- we can!  It is in the nature of love to want a return.  God is not a cruel lover, loving us though we can't return it.  It is in the very nature of love to ensure that the beloved can love back.  Indeed, love ensures it; the divine love extended to us is a creative love: it creates love and beauty in us so we may return it.

Revelation shows us the way: "the cup of salvation I will raise."  That is, the chalice of the blood of Christ.  What are we to believe, that he poured out his love upon the ground during the terrible agony of the cross and does not want us to receive it into ourselves?  "Take, drink my blood," Jesus tells us.  "How can I return your love, oh Jesus?"  "Take, drink my blood."  Yes, the cup of salvation I will raise.  I begin returning your love by first receiving it, accepting it, believing it, drinking it.  I cannot return your love if I don't first receive it.  And so the cup of salvation I will raise.  My heart then groans in praise and so love flows into the next movement: Praise.  "I will call on the Lord's name."  "Your name is like perfume poured out." (Song of Solomon 1.3)

Promises and vows flow naturally out of the lover's heart.  So after I receive your love and praise you, I make vows of love and fidelity to you.  And because I am aglow with love I want to proclaim it before others, so they may see it and witness to it.  Jesus prayed "Father I desire that they be with me to see the glory you have given me because you love me."  (John 17.24) Jesus wants us with him so we can witness to the love the Father has for him.  As his children we want others to witness his love for us and our return of that love with praises and vows.

"O precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful."  The death spoken of here is not physical death so much as it is the death of one's ego and will before God.  For the next movement of love is the complete submission of one's will to the lovers'.  What person in love cannot be said to have had their will given over to the beloved?  And so Jesus teaches us to pray "thy will be done, Father" even as he prayed it and lived it.

This, then, is how we can return God's love: principally by receiving it and drinking his blood, then by praising him, making vows to him before others and then crucifying our will unto his.  You will note here Christ's redemptive act and our entrance into it by our reason (transformed by faith) and our will (transformed by obedience), all of which constitutes and is crowned by love.

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup.  (Psalm 16.5)

My food is to do the will of him who sent me. (John 4.34)