Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. It's called to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

Today is the Feast of St James, the Great, the Brother of John, and one of the three Apostles who were the closest

friends of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew relates.

Then the mother of James and John came with her sons to make a request of Jesus,

and bowed low and he said to her,

What do you want? She said to her, what do you want?

She said to him,

Promise that these two sons of mine

may sit one at your right and what in your left

in your kingdom. You do not know what you are asking, Jesus answered.

Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?

They replied, we can.

Very well he said, you shall drink my cup, but as for seats at my right hand and my left,

these are not mine to grant. They belong to those to whom they have been allotted

by my father. And when the other ten heard this, they were indignant with the two brothers.

Now, you might be tempted to think James and John had given into vain ambition,

especially since the other apostles were indignant.

But St. John Henry Newman gives a very different perspective.

He thinks this was not vain ambition, but rather courage.

Courage is the willingness to risk what is lesser for what is greater, courage requires that we risk something to gain the prize.

Can you drink the cup? Jesus asked.

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