"And a scribe came up and said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." Another of the disciples said to him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead." And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him." (Mt 8:19-22)

“Follow Me.”

Two of the most challenging, difficult and haunting words that Jesus has ever spoken, because, with those two words, He calls us forth from the comfort of our lives to the seeming uncertainty and unpredictable way of His Will.

And, like the disciples, we are given two options, to respond in immediacy, without hesitation or deliberation or to try to prolong the inevitable and make excuses in order to avoid being called.

With those words, Jesus reminds us that to be a disciple we will not always know the road ahead of us, nor may we know what will be asked of us, which is why our response is so important, because it is our response that will define us in our vocation and will determine whether in great trust if we will leave, follow and be guided or look for an excuse like that of even wanting to bury the dead.

For, while it seems like the man in the Gospel has good intentions, Jesus sees through Him and tells Him: “let the dead bury the dead.” He is not being callous or disrespectful, because, there is absolutely no indication that this man’s father was even dead, or, for that matter, even sick. It is, rather, an excuse to not follow Him at that moment, to avoid what it is he is being called to do, that of, as Jesus says, proclaiming the kingdom of God.

Yet, the hesitation and fear of the unknown is always what prevents us from responding as we should, and while Jesus does not make it any easier by stating that He has nowhere to rest His head, He shows us what it means to have that true type of abandonment, to go where we are called and to put all of our trust in the Will of the Father.

What Jesus said had power enough for them to drop everything and follow Him. Some even left their father in the boat it was so abrupt and instantaneous. He spoke and they followed.

It is this that should be the model for our lives and the driving force by which and through which our lives are governed, because in following we are being led, in following we have a guide to literally light our way. In fact, His light in our lives is what makes our lives what they are, His light shows us the way to Him by illuminating our steps and by dissipating the shadows that are cast by the world.

St. Josemaria Escriva, puts it well. He says: “Before becoming apostles, we are fisherman. After becoming apostles, we are fisherman still. The same profession, before and after. What has changed, he asks, There is a change inside our soul, he says, now that Christ has come aboard, as he went aboard Peter’s boat. Its horizon has opened wider. It feels a greater ambition to serve and an irrepressible desire to tell all creation…the marvelous doings of our Lord, if only we let him work.”

For all vocations, in the end, ultimately, ask for the same challenging choice, the choice to stay in the boat waiting for something or someone better to come along or, to throw all caution to the wind, leave everything and to follow Him.