As preparation for Christmas continues, John the Baptist is again featured in the gospel (Lk 3:10-18).  Crowds, and specifically tax collectors and soldiers, ask John how they should respond to his message.  He gives practical advice to all.  Then they wonder if John is the Messiah.  John answers in no uncertain terms that he is not, but he does tell them that the Christ will be coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit, gather the wheat, and burn the chaff.  The question that was on the lips of many of John’s hearers must be ours today.  We hear the Word and we must respond.  But how?  Our daily prayer, our constant pleading, must be to be disposed in such a way as to clearly hear and to faithfully follow the Lord’s will for us.  We must strive to be in perfect imitation of Christ and thus perfect union with God.  In a season when we call for peace on earth we must always remember that it truly does “begin with me.”