The Feast of Saint James the Great, kept on the twenty-fifth of July, commemorates the son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of John, and one of the three disciples closest to our Lord. With Peter and John, James witnessed the Transfiguration on the holy mountain and the agony in the garden of Gethsemane. The brothers were surnamed by our Lord Boanerges — Sons of Thunder — and their mother asked on their behalf for the chief seats in the kingdom. Our Lord answered with a question: Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of? They said they could. The cup was Calvary and all the suffering that preceded it.

James was the first of the Twelve to be martyred. The Acts of the Apostles records briefly: Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church, and he killed James the brother of John with the sword. It was approximately AD 44. The apostle who had boasted that he could drink Christ's cup was among the first to prove it.

The Collect for Saint James prays that as he left his father and all he had, without delay obedient to the calling of Christ, we may forsake all worldly and carnal affections and be evermore ready to follow God's holy commandments. The appointed Gospel from Matthew 20, with its account of the mother's request and the Lord's answer, is at once a searching examination of the Church's temptation to seek greatness for itself and a proclamation that true greatness is found in service and in the willingness to drink Christ's cup.