It was the same with those fiery and explosive brothers, James and John, whom Our Lord aptly nick-named 'Sons of Thunder'.

Their great fault was lack of self-control and on one occasion they would gladly have had a whole Samaritan village wiped out by fire from heaven as a punishment for the unfriendly reception which its inhabitants had shown to Our Lord.

And so it was appropriately St John who saw the virtue of self-control perfectly exemplified in the palace of the high priest on Good Friday morning, when Our Lord was struck across the face; but all he did was calmly to say to the officer who struck him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong.  But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” (NRSV, John 18:23).

And yet the two brothers knew that for all his magnificent self-control he was consumed with an enthusiasm, far exceeding their own, for the honour of his Father in heaven – as witness, for example, his cleansing of the Temple Court when the disciples were irresistibly reminded of the verse in the Psalm, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (NRSV, John 2:17).

So too, against Peter’s frankness and instability could be set Our Lord’s sheer sincerity and unbreakable fortitude.