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.

Death is precious?  Yes, death to self is most precious to God.  “For unless the grain of wheat die…” (John 12.24)  Death to the self of greed, envy, slander, lust, anger and every kind of evil.  Death to the world, which beckons us to assert ourselves.

“My vows to the Lord I will fulfill, and thus shall I die to myself and be accounted precious to God.”  The vow of my vocation indeed brings death to my body and, with the Spirit of God dwelling in me, conforms my body to the crucified Christ, joining him there on the cross.

Your servant, Lord, your servant am I;

you have loosened my bonds.

A thanksgiving sacrifice I make:

I will call on the Lord’s name.

How can servitude loosen our bonds?  We are servants either of God or the devil.  Everyone is a servant of that which they cannot avoid: sin to the sinner, the Word to the one finding salvation.  But the truest freedom is indeed found by the servant of the Lord, for our freedom lies in being true to the reason we were created: to give unceasing thanksgiving to God.  In obeying his commandments we are freed from the snares of death, and overcome the father of lies who seeks to convince us that freedom consists in having no constraints on our actions or behavior.  Freedom to the unmitigated pleasures of sin and the world is death to the soul.

Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God

and render him your votive offerings.

Call on me in the day of distress.

I will free you and you shall honor me. (Psalm 50.14-15)

What sacrifice is most pleasing to God? - a sacrifice of thanksgiving: “those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me” (v 23).  Our Lord wants us to call upon him in our distress, and he will liberate us.

There is divine law everywhere in creation.  There is divine law in the very order of reality, in the law of love.  Thus did Christ fulfill the law when he died for our sins, being hung on a tree.  Who are we to think we do not live in servitude?  Either the destroying servitude of sin leading to death or the liberating servitude of the freedom of God’s children, servitude to the Truth, servitude to the Light of the Word.