The reason why he, the all-holy God made Man, chose these ordinary, very imperfect men to be his closest friends was that he accepted them not as they were but as they were becoming.  Knowing human nature through and through as he did, he perceived their possibilities and foresaw the heights to which they could climb.

Nor did events prove him wrong.  John lived to be a very old man, and with the passing years his spirituality and his knowledge of God steadily deepened and developed until he gave to the world the incomparable Gospel which bears his name, as well as the letters which have rightly earned for him the title, ‘The Apostle of Love’.  That was the growth of which Jesus knew he was capable, from Son of Thunder to Apostle of Love.

As for James, he was not spared to live so long.  Fourteen years after the Crucifixion he drained the cup of suffering, which during Our Lord’s earthly life he had avowed he could drink, and was the first of the Apostles to lay down his life for the Faith.