And Peter’s faith was given soundness and vigour only by his suffering an experience which Jesus compares to pruning by the vine-grower’s knife. “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times’. And he went out and wept bitterly” (NRSV, Luke 22:61,62).

No one will ever know or even guess the turmoil which rocked poor Peter’s soul from that moment until Easter morning when the Risen Christ gave him absolution. It was an experience which he himself, so far as we know, never referred to afterwards, but as a result of it his faith was from then onwards unquestioning and unconquerable; his union with Our Lord was immediate and unrestricted; and the fruit was seen in the heroic sanctity of his life and martyrdom.