Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?  MT 20:17-28
 
What mother or parent for that matter doesn’t want the very best for their children?  In today’s Gospel, we see the mother of James and John fall at the feet of Jesus and ask that her sons be set on the right and left hand of Jesus in heaven.   Out of love and concern for her sons, she wants her sons to be as close to Jesus as possible when he comes into his kingdom.  What she doesn’t realize that her request was not as simple as having somebody save you a seat at a concert or save a spot in a line. Ultimately her request carried a huge price tag, and Jesus doesn’t outright deny it of them, but asks if they are able to drink from the same challis that he was about to drink from.  Jesus relays to her that it isn’t He who chooses who will sit next to Him, but it is instead the will of God to decide who would be seated next to Jesus.
If you were a parent, it would seem that you would most assuredly want your child to be close to Jesus, but at the cost of extreme suffering … maybe not so much.  To understand what that would be like, put yourself in Mary’s shoes while she witnessed Christ’s passion unfold.  She like any parent would have likely given any price for her son to not have been subjected to the torture that he went through.  Even knowing that God sent Jesus to the world to redeem it, watching him suffer the unspeakable horrors of his passion would have been devastating for a parent to witness.  Ultimately as Jesus pointed out, it was about God’s will.  It was God’s will to redeem humanity from the sin and provide the means to reconcile humanity to Himself once again.
Even with this, he offers us the choice to accept the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf and doesn’t force anyone to be redeemed.  We still have the free choice that has existed from the beginning of mankind which led us to why Jesus’ suffering was necessary in the first place.  So, when you pray the prayer that Jesus taught us, and ask for God’s will to be done, are you really willing to allow God’s will to be done through you?  Perhaps it doesn’t mean that you will suffer the same devastation that our Lord did, but are you willing to suffer what God asks of you?  Are you willing to pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus?