To be a disciple demands much, it demands trust, perseverance, a strong faith, and a desire to free ourselves of attachments in order to be free to move in any direction Jesus calls us.
In fact, everyone in the Gospel is always eager to follow Jesus, but feel as though they have to get everything in order before doing so. And yet that is what Jesus is warning about, the desire to follow is great, but there are things, there are people, that can cause us to forget that original call, that will allow us to take our hands off that plow and look away, turn around, leaving the soil of people’s souls untilled and our own heart longing for that call again, because, ideally, by putting our hand to the plow, we don’t look back, not because we don’t want to or because we don’t feel that sense of nostalgia, but because, when we reach that level of trust in God, that obedience and submissiveness to His Will, we will have no other desire than to look forward, to embrace what is to come not as an uncertainty or as a mystery, but, rather, as another road that God has directed us towards, another desire He wishes to fulfill within us.
The fact of the matter is discipleship is hard and it demands much, in the form of a cross, demanding detachment, determination, discipline, discernment and humility. Those in the Gospel were not bad people; they just were not ready to make a commitment, how often we too are not ready for the same, knowing that God has demanded something of us.
Yet, unlike those in the Gospel, we need not make excuses but, rather, ready ourselves for the journey, for everyday, in one way or another, no matter who we are, how old we are, or where we are, we are called, we are asked to follow, and to do so, in full confidence and faith.
And, if we are ready, by doing so, when we hear the invitation, the simple call: “Follow me,” without hesitation or excuse, we can get up and move about, always and ready to do God’s Will.
That is why if you feel you are truly being called to the priesthood or religious life, you will know. In fact, just as you ask a married couple how they knew they were in love, and they really can't explain it, but they just know, that is the same.
Yet, let's be honest, one of the greatest stumbling blocks to a vocation and the primary one that would cause anyone to remove their hand from the plow is that of celibacy. Yet, ultimately, you have to understand that God gives you the grace to live a life of celibacy. God has instilled within us the desire for a wife, or husband as the case may be (it is not good that man should be alone), but He gives us the grace because He is calling us to something more, in that sense then, your significant other becomes, as it were, God. However, some men have a very difficult time relating to a masculine God, and though they may love their Father on earth, that falls short of the love they have for God, it is more intimate, but it is not sexual, in the strictest sense of the word. In other words, there is a fulfillment and an intimacy that can only be known through, with, and in God. This is both something profoundly beautiful and mysterious.
Granted, that does not mean that once you consent to God's Will in being a priest or religious, if that is what He wants for you (for He knows what is best for us) that you immediately stop thinking about what it would be like being married and having children, it just means that we have to learn to look at our family on a larger scale, and children as being more spiritual children then those physically your own. See, something that takes a while to truly understand and appreciate is that when God calls certain people to a life of chaste celibacy they must start looking to Heaven and seeing our family up there, and, at the same time, to look to those on earth on a larger scale, a more universal one, knowing that in Christ there is no division of His Body. As a priest, specifically, you enter into an eternal coventant (you are a priest forever) and therefore, the rules of love and marriage are a little different. In that sense then, we become witnesses to what the Church calls the eschatological nature of the Church, simply put, the "already but not yet." A celibate therefore lives the way in which we will all live one day.
Granted, it does not happen overnight, nor does it impede who we are as human beings, rather, it is a freely given gift to those who have chosen to pursue their vocation and truly put their hand to the plow, knowing, indeed, that this is what God has called them to.
