From the responsorial psalm: “Although they go forth weeping, carrying the seed to be sown, They shall come back rejoicing, carrying their sheaves. Those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 20:20-28)
The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My chalice you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
In response to the mother of James and John, Jesus asks them if they can accept the suffering that Jesus himself will face. Asking them whether they are prepared to give over their lives as they suffer in the service of the Lord, Jesus wishes to know their sincerity of heart. In their affirmative response, Jesus sees their devotion to him and to his mission and so says, “My chalice you will indeed drink.” In obedience to the Father, Jesus tells them that anything more is not his to give. When the other ten hear of the request of James and John, they become resentful. But gathering them together, he says, “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.” In the same way, Jesus tells them, he came not to be served “but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
God, help me see how Jesus invited James and John to model their lives after his. He asked them if they desired to drink the same chalice of suffering that he would drink, and he invites me to do the same. How is it that I would willingly take up suffering in a life of service to you, Lord? What is there in that invitation that would keep me from fleeing in the opposite direction? I am comfortable; I don’t suffer much. Yet, I know suffering has come and will come again. If suffering is inevitable, let me welcome Christ as it comes because he alone brings life in the shadow of death. In the midst of every kind of suffering, Saint Paul says, we do this for your glory. We have in our mortal bodies your surpassing power, “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.” Saint James, pray for us!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.