Yet Our Lord recognised in Peter the natural leader of the Apostles with his resourcefulness, his buoyant vigour, his enthusiasm, and his remarkable powers of recovery after a fall.  Our Lord, with his penetrating insight into people’s characters, saw that once Peter had learnt humility and accepted his limitations, then he would be as unshakeable as a rock, a firm and sure foundation for the Christian Church.

So we read that Our Lord, when he first met St Peter and long before his character was strong enough to deserve the title, looked fixedly on him – as he was to do again in very different circumstances – and said, “So you are Simon, the son of John?  You shall be called Cephas – Peter – a Rock” (John 1:42).

It was thus appropriately enough that Peter justified his leadership of the Apostles by being the first to declare that Our Lord was the Messiah, the long awaited King and Deliverer.  But it was also typical of the Apostle that, puffed up by the praise with which Our Lord rewarded him for that great declaration, he lost no time in reprimanding his Master for saying that as the Messiah he must suffer and die.