Jesus in My Life - Kristine Franklin

Fr. Frank Pavone
When Christ knocked at the door of his heart, he opened.

When I was in high school, my studies were my life. I attended public schools in Port Chester, New York, was at the top of my class and had a wall filled with various plaques and academic awards. During the summer before my senior year, which by special arrangement was my third year of high school, I was on a family vacation in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

As we walked along the boardwalk, we stopped in one of the many souvenir shops along the way. There were bright T-shirts, unusual mugs, eyeglasses of every shape and color, and a kaleidoscope of other odds and ends. In one corner of the shop, however, a large picture caught my attention. It was Christ, the Light of the World. This is the painting in which Jesus is standing in a garden with a lantern in his hand, knocking at a door with no handle on it.

I immediately had the desire to buy the picture. I'll never forget the feeling I had as I walked the rest of the boardwalk that summer evening with the picture under my arm. Christ was walking with me. His presence was palpable, and I was experiencing more joy from Him at that moment than from all the entertainment and excitement around me. So strong was this experience that when I got home, I took all the awards off the wall of my room, and hung the picture of the Lord in their place.

The picture as a symbol, however, could not compare with the relationship I began enjoying with Him in the Eucharist. As a high school senior, I began going to daily Mass. What better could I do, I asked myself, than help others discover this great gift? That's what led me to the priesthood: the desire to introduce others to the Lord.

I made a daily Eucharistic holy hour. At times, when I couldn't get into a Church, I had to make the hour of adoration from the car outside!

His Eucharistic presence made me all the more aware of His presence at every moment — even when I was away from the Eucharist. I began to use the ordinary events of the day as stepping stones to prayer. Upon entering a restaurant or shopping center, I'd lift up in prayer all the other people who were there. Driving down the highway, I'd pray for the other drivers. When the other side of the road was snarled in a traffic jam, my prayer would be, "Lord Jesus, please give all those people patience. . . and thank you, Lord, that I'm on the other side!"

With the presence of the Lord Jesus, I'm constantly more aware of my own sins, and of my ability to close the door to Him. There's a reason, after all, why the door in that picture doesn't have a doorknob: it's the door of the human heart, and can only be opened from the inside.