COMMITMENT, whether personal or professional, is out of fashion these days. People regularly change partners and careers. In such a climate, where nothing seems permanent, commitment will always struggle to find a place. We wonder why we should bother. But commitment lies at the heart of the vocation to ministerial priesthood and the religious life.

This Sunday during Eastertide is the day set aside each year by the Roman Catholic Church to pray especially for such vocations. They are in short supply at present. In the circumstances that may not be surprising, but as a seminary rector, naturally I must reflect on these matters. Doing so has made me consider not only commitment, but particularly the nature of risk.

Risk can be fascinating. It gives the gambler his thrill. But risks do not fall into a single category. There is a distinction between the risks we run because we have ourselves taken an initiative, and those we face because we have accepted an invitation.

When we take an initiative — for example, to move house or change job or emigrate — we assess the implications. We weigh the pros and cons, we consider the advantages and disadvantages. We know we do not control the outcome. The conclusion is uncertain. Some risk is unavoidable. If we decide to proceed, however, the risks can be described as of our own choosing. They are our risks.

On the other hand, when we receive an invitation — I mean something significant, which can change our lives — we know that that too involves risks. We do not know precisely what will happen. Once again, we look ahead and weigh up whether or not to accept. We think it through as best we can. And if we accept, it is our decision and we must take responsibility for it.

But I would suggest that if we accept, the risks involved are different from those which are part of an initiative we may take. The risks which come from accepting an invitation are not as such of our own choosing. To accept this kind of invitation involves making a commitment. It means that we accept the risks, the consequences of that commitment, whatever they may be. Why should we bother? Perhaps because we have discovered something of real value.

When Jesus calls the fishermen Simon and Andrew, James and John, they leave everything, boats, nets, livelihood, and follow him (see Mark i, 16-20). It is not as though they have noticed this man from Nazareth and weighed the consequences of following him. They are not like entrepreneurs, calculating a risk which might make their future more profitable. They have not taken the initiative. Jesus has. He has called them, invited them, and they have responded.

Why? Something about Him must have touched something deep in them. Why else would they follow Him? They have no idea where it will lead, but they are prepared to take the risk. We do not take risks for what matters little to us. The risks we take reveal what we value.

And to be ordained is to accept an invitation. I must take responsibility for it, but in a way it is not my own initiative. I hear Jesus’s words to His disciples at the Last Supper as words addressed to me: “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John xv, 16). They are humbling words, not cause for conceit. “Why did you want to be a priest?” people sometimes ask me still. It is not easy to answer, but there was a sense of something personal and compelling, and also of great value. It is a call to live at depth, whatever the risks, whatever the cost.

The American theologian, John Dunne, has described such a life memorably as being like an undertow. While life on the surface is like the surf, foam and splash and the sound of breaking waves, the undertow is a powerful current which may run against the prevailing tide.

This image is as applicable to marriage as to the life of minist- erial priesthood, but it captures powerfully the life lived at depth which those who have been ordained are invited to embrace. And maybe it hints at the rewards as well.

Monsignor Roderick Strange is Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome. He is author of The Risk of Discipleship: the Catholic Priest Today, available from The Times bookshop at the offer price of £8.76 (plus 99p P&P) 0870 42906677