Lift up your heads

“Keep your head down” is traditional advice for life (and for golf). The idea is to focus completely on the task at hand.

In today’s Gospel (Lk. 4:38-44), the example our Lord gives is not “Keep your head down” but “Lift up your heads... and keep them up.”

At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.

The crowds went looking for him,
and when they came to him,
they tried to prevent him from leaving them.

But he said to them,
"To the other towns also I must proclaim
the good news of the Kingdom of God,
because for this purpose I have been sent."

Although he is fully engaged with the task of ministering to the people at hand, our Lord does not bury his head in it

He keeps his head lifted up in prayer to the Father, going to a deserted place in the morning to pray.

He keeps his head lifted up and his eye on the full panorama of his mission, of which the task at hand is only a part.

In our own lives, it is sometimes easy for us to feel overwhelmed: there are too many pressures, too much to do, too many needs to be met.

We should lift up our heads: always remembering to lift ourselves and our needs to the Lord in prayer and always keeping our eye clearly fixed on our fundamental obligations and on the purpose for which we have been sent.