I can tell you my reason—the celibacy rule. I’d love to be a priest if it weren’t for that. I feel the need for a woman, a companion who can help me in my faith and whom I can help in her faith. A woman who I can spend the rest of my life with, hold, have children with, etc. I feel this is necessary in my life, and it’s the only thing stopping me from being a priest.
actually, more recently vocations to the priesthood have been going up,
why i’m not sure, although i do know that seminaries such as the ones for the FSSP are flourishing, so maybe that’s part of it.
but even though there’s been more lately, the reason there are still so few then there use to be, is largely because it is not presented very well or very much at all, God is not even aloud in our schools right now, and to many families tend to just sit in front of their tvs and computers rather than make time for family prayer or other good religious activities and devotions…the family is the most important place to learn your religion, that is what the church teaches…but parents seem to leave that to people they don’t know, or they neglect it altogether…and in my opinion, that is one of the biggest reasons.
but anyways, in regards to “the celibacy rule”, that really shouldn’t make a difference when someone wants to give their whole self to God,
the call to the priesthood is a very special calling that comes from God alone, it is a privilege and not a right, no one is truly worthy to be a priest, it is something that should be done out of humility and obedience,
“Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:
and come follow me. And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions.” Matthew 19:21
“and come follow me”, if we wish to be perfect, we must follow in imitation of the virtues of Jesus, and for those who voluntarily observe the virtues of poverty and chastity, they will have a particularly great reward in heaven.
if you feel called to the priesthood, you should consider what that means, it means giving yourself to God, abandoning yourself and submitting to His will entirely, it means laying down your life for the love of God,
“And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me.” Galatians 2:20, it is dieing to yourself, so that Christ may live in you.
to have a wife and children is a wonderful and blessed thing, but even as wonderful as they are to have, they should still not come between you and God, you should be able to love God above them, and love them as they should be loved - for the love of God.
because even if you are called to the married life rather than the religious life, it is that complete surrender to Gods will that will also inspire vocations in your own family…so even if you get married, make God the most important part of your family(which there is a right way to do and a wrong way to do…here is an excellent book called “The Christian Father” which is a must have in my opinion -
angeluspress.org/oscatalog/item/8230/the-christian-father you can also find it cheaper on amazon.)
God calls many people to the priestly or religious life, and it seems more often then not, the answer is “no”,
consider that, God may be asking you - “Would you sacrifice having a wife and children, to come follow Me?, would you give all for love of Me?”, the answer depends on how much you love Him, or what you may love more than Him.
God doesn’t just want a part of you, He loves you completely, and He wants all of you without reserve, how can you expect to answer such a call with the full time responsibility of a family on your hands? the priestly life is not an easy one, i know a priest who came over from the middle east somewhere where they allow priests to marry, and he has a wife and 3 boys, and this priest, as kind as he is, did not have time for both, something always seemed to be left neglected, either his family or his flock, and because of this, most people left his church, and it has since been closed down…
The Holy Ghost is the one who guides our church, and there’s no doubt that He has influenced the vow of chastity in our priestly and religious vocations,
and i can see, although not completely, the great wisdom behind it,
it’s not just a matter of sacrifice, it’s a matter of subjecting the body to the spirit, mortifying your flesh and being master over it,
we are very weak to the flesh without the grace of God, when we become subject to it and slave to our passions, it is very hard, harder than anything else, to escape it,
but with Gods help, it is possible, and the means of escaping such attachments are the same means by which we avoid falling into them in the first place - which is by daily prayer, always having instant recourse to God in time of temptation, frequenting the sacraments, reading good catholic books daily, especially the lives of the saints, mortification and fasting, practice of all the virtues, and other particular practices and cautions, which you can learn from the church and from reading the lives and writings of the saints.
i can’t tell you if God is calling you or not, but despite what your vocation in life may be, we are all called to live a holy life in imitation of Christ and in complete submission to Gods will, and so whether you are called to get married or be a priest, you should still work in increasing in your love for God, and reaching for the holiness you are personally called to.
well, that is all for now, but here is a site with some audio sermons on the priestly and religious life that i think will help you out alot in understanding all of this -
audiosancto.org/categories/vocations.php
ok, so i hope this helps, take care.
