Many years ago, in Paris there was a boy called Paul Claudel, He was from a very good family, and he was very intelligent. He was also nominally a catholic, he was indifferent, an “a la carte” catholic. Then one day something moved him; it was Christmas eve 1886, and he heard the monks singing in Notre Dame cathedral in Paris and he felt the urge to enter. That evening would change his life forever.  He wrote afterwards: “in an instant my heart was touched, and I believed.  He became a devout catholic and a great writer.  What happened at that moment in Paul Claudel’s life? Jesus became a real person in his heart and in his life.  Everything took on a new meaning and his life took on a wonderful adventure.  His life became a mission, and this is the mission of every Christian, not only for Paul Claudel, but also for each one of us.  In today’s gospel we see the great figure of St. John the Baptist.  Dressed in camel skins and eating only locusts and wild honey.  He is preaching in the desert and hundreds of people came to hear him. He is making straight the way of the Lord, the way for Jesus who will come soon. We are invited to organize our lives around evangelization. Everything we do ought to be related somehow to it, to make straight the ways of the Lord.  This doesn’t mean that we all must become professional evangelizers. Remember, we can evangelize by the moral quality of our lives.  But it does mean that nothing in our lives ought to be more important than announcing the coming of Jesus, especially at this time of the year. What is my mission at this moment? There are two types of people around today, drains and radiators. People who are drains are always critical, judgmental, pulling down complaining, being negative, there draining you. I read a phrase some time ago, which was from Albert Einstein:  “Stay away from negative people they have a problem for  every solution”. We have other people who are radiators, it is a joy to be around them, they are optimistic, encouraging uplifting. When we are in deep communion with God our lives become a radiator, they radiate light and beauty. John invites all of us to a change of heart to a new way of thinking.  No matter how perfect we are there is always something in our lives that we can improve.  Something that we should change.  Let us pray that we may become closer to Jesus this Christmas, some people have stopped coming to mass, or are just following mass on the webcam which is not the same as physically attending mass, maybe for these people Christmas is a time to become closer to Jesus, like Paul Claudel many years ago. For all of us to see what we need to change in our lives and radiate the messgae of Jesus this christmas.