From The Courage of Christ by Fr. Henry Schuyler, S.T.L.
His experience, in the eyes of His fellow-men, was limited. Yet the mind of Christ was greater than the world He lived in. Through the supernatural light that filled it, He saw plainly before Him the one great work He was to accomplish. This and the various minor details that fitted into His plan for our salvation were present to His mind as He worked by day at the carpenter’s bench; as He sat in the evening by the open door of their little home; as He knelt at His mother’s knees in early life, or prayed in later years in the solitude of His room. Many a night we can picture this youth of Nazareth gazing up at the stars that lit the heavens of Palestine, thinking of the lost sheep He must rescue; thinking too of the opposition destined to be His lot, of the slight return His work was to receive; thinking, perhaps, of the treachery of Judas, of Peter’s denial. Before Him, as He prayed alone, there would flash the vision of Gethsemane, of Calvary and its cross, and oh! the hardest of all to bear, the sight of His mother weeping beneath the cross. He Himself could suffer, but to cause His mother pain; that mother who had so fondly bade Him gcod-night but a short time before; who even now, no doubt, was also kneeling in prayer for the world He was planning to save: this was almost unbearable. And yet, unless it were done, His work could not be accomplished. Well, so let it be. But then another dark cloud envelops His soul. His sufferings and the sufferings of His mother, even these would fail to save so many millions of men. He sees souls falling headlong into hell in spite of all. He sees some of His very followers indifferent to His plans, unwilling to help Him, to work for Him. And all this was present to His mind for years before He started His active work. No mind ever conceived a plan destined to be opposed so violently; no mind ever foresaw opposition so clearly; and no will ever persisted so unfalteringly as did our Saviour’s.