A person becomes a priest, not because he wants to. He becomes a priest because he believes God wants him to. Becoming a priest is a vocation, a calling (comes from the Latin word, vocare, to call).

A vocation is a mysterious thing. It is marked by an inner sense, rather than by logical reasoning. As a call from God, it is heard in the heart. It can be in the form of a desire - "I can't explain but I just want to be a priest". It can be simply that we feel a desire to do something special with my life, for instance, I am unsatisfied with just a job; I am restless and want something more. It can be that I am attracted by the priesthood. I can see myself as a priest.

One young man who struggled with this question and became a Christian, a priest, a bishop and one of the greatest theologians in the Church was St Augustine. He expressed his interior searching and struggle in these words in his Confessions:

Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new: late have I loved you: You were always within me, and I abroad, seeking you there. I rushed madly about in the midst of forms beautiful which you had made. You were always with me, but I was not with you. The very things which had not been, unless they were in you, kept me from you. You called me by name, You cried aloud to me, and your voice pierced my deafness.

For Augustine it was a slow process of growth and discovery; something he struggled with, and against, for many years. The quiet inner voice of God does not go away. In the simple persistence of a yearning of our hearts we can know that it is indeed the call of the Lord.