Embarrassed by Mom

Their mother walked right up to the teacher, in front of all their friends, her sons sheepishly following behind her.

She was straightforward in saying what she wanted: special treatment for her boys.

Her sons looked at the ground, their friends grumbled, but the teacher smiled: a gentle smile with the barest hint of a shadow.

The teacher spoke directly to the sons. There was a serious misunderstanding here. He asked them if they could do something and they said they could.

The teacher now spoke quite solemnly. The specific request was off-limits, but they would get very special treatment.

“The cup that I drink,
you will drink,
and with the baptism with which I am baptized,
you will be baptized.”

On this day we remember St. James the Apostle (a.k.a. James the Greater), the eldest of these two sons, who shared in the suffering of Christ through martyrdom just over a decade after his teacher and Lord.