<![CDATA[The GFC - Adventure Blog]]>

Adoration and the Greatest Hero
Does anyone here have a dog or a cat?
I want to start with a joke.
There’s an old story about Adam and Eve asking God for a companion.
Adam and Eve said, 'Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day.
Now we do not see you any more. We are lonesome here, and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us.'
And God said, I will create a companion for you that will be with you and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me.
Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves.'
And God created a new animal to be a companion for them.
And it was a good animal and God was pleased.
And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.
And Adam said, 'Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.'
And God said, 'I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.'
And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them.
And they were comforted.
And God was pleased.
And Dog was happy and wagged his tail.
After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, 'Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride.
They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration.
Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well.'
And God said, I will create for them a companion who will be with them and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration.'
And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve.
A dog looks at its owner and thinks, "Wow, this person feeds me, gives me water, cleans up after me, pets me and gives me shelter. He must be God!"
While cat looks at its owner and thinks, "Wow, this person feeds me, gives me water, cleans up after me, pets me and gives me shelter. I must be God!
And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat's eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings.
And Adam and Eve learned humility.
And they were greatly improved.
And God was pleased.
And Dog was happy.
And Cat couldn’t care less.

My name is Alphonso.
I’m a former Golden Gloves boxer, and now I’m a coach. I’ve never married. I enjoy riding motorcycles and working on cars. I have a dog, a few good friends, and, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, many brothers and sisters.
[Point toward the ACTS group.]
Owning a dog has taught me something about God’s nature.
My dog is quick to forgive.
He is filled with joy when he sees me, even if I’ve only been gone for a little while—or a week.
He is happiest when he is close beside me.
And most importantly, his love seems unconditional.
Even when I’ve pet other dogs or spanked him.

I come from what I would describe as a stable but dysfunctional family.
My family has both wheat and tares.
When I was a child, I grew up watching cartoons and reading comic books. My heroes were
Superman and Batman.
I idolized them.
I wanted to be like them.
I even dressed up as them for Halloween, even though some mean kids teased me because my
skin wasn’t the right color.
I didn't realize it at the time, but many of the heroes we admire share similar qualities:
Courage, Bravery, Empathy, Compassion, Selflessness, Sacrifice.
Determination, & Resilience.
While the villains often have their own recurring characteristics:
Cruelty, Cunning, Jealousy,
Dishonesty, Selfish ambition, and a desire for power and control.
But today I want to talk about the greatest Hero of all.
And I want to be honest about something first:
I’m no hero.
I am a sinner, just like you.
I know that the wages of sin are death.
I’ve had premarital sex. I’ve done drugs. I’ve lied. I’ve looked at pornography. I’ve said and done
hurtful things to people.
I am not a perfect person.
Far from it.
I have faced temptation and fallen many times.
But because of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I am able to get back up.
I can receive forgiveness.
And I can try again.

It all starts with kneeling.
Bowing or kneeling is an act of respect and submission.
And today I’m here to talk about Adoration and the greatest Hero who ever lived:
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The word adoration means to deeply respect, venerate, worship, or hold in the highest regard.
To adore God is to recognize Him as Creator, Savior, Lord, and Master—and as the source of infinite merciful love.
The First Commandment tells us:
“I am the Lord your God. You shall not have other gods besides me.”
And the Second Commandment is like the first: You shall not make false idols for yourselves,
which can take our eyes off of our true hero, God.

This becomes difficult when we cannot clearly see or relate to the person we are supposed to follow.
I believe this is part of the reason God sent His only begotten Son.
Jesus made the invisible God visible.
In Jesus, we have a Savior who humbly entered into our humanity.
He experienced suffering.
He experienced temptation.
He experienced rejection.
And yet He remained obedient to the Father—even when obedience meant accepting a cruel and torturous death on the Cross.
Jesus didn't merely tell us what love looks like.
He showed us.

Earlier I mentioned that I come from a dysfunctional family.
I grew up in what I believed to be a normal family of 5.
After all, fish don't know they're in water.
I confirmed later in therapy that I was surrounded by dysfunction.
My father is an authoritarian patriarch who lacks self-control over his temper and frequently gnashes his teeth in anger.
As a child, this was terrifying.
My mother is the dutiful enabler wife. She endures my dad’s temper since he rescued her from poverty in India, unlike her own absentee father. Two of her brothers died of alcoholism.
My older brother is the “golden child”, who was taught to fulfill my parents' requirements and dreams.
My younger brother is the “lost child”
And I became the family scapegoat.
We were raised with “the belt”, but what affected me most was the unpredictability of my father's anger.
As a child, it is difficult to distinguish between love, discipline, fear, and abuse because your parents are the people you depend upon.
You love them.
You need them.
And you don't yet have the perspective to understand what is healthy and what isn't.

When my older brother went to college, it was mostly me and my younger brother at home.
I tried to avoid trouble and my chaotic younger brother.
I focused on school, music, and sports, while he used to sneak out of the house.
I learned to anticipate my father's moods and to keep the peace.
I became a people pleaser.
I learned to put my own needs last.
Eventually, my efforts in academics paid off.
I received a full scholarship to college and moved out.
In school I served as a resident adviser, I got to live on campus, sign leases and welcome new students, help resolve roommate conflicts, hosted events, and provided counsel to people who were struggling.
I loved that job.
Looking back, it foreshadowed what I would eventually do with my life.

After college, I worked in finance and eventually bought my first investment property.
I became a live-in landlord.
But meanwhile, my younger brother was struggling.
He had difficulty finishing school and maintaining employment. He moved to Denver for work. He became involved with alcohol and drugs and eventually developed a serious addiction to crystal meth.
My family repeatedly tried to rescue him financially.
I did the same.
I often flew to Colorado to visit him.
I gave him money.
I bought his groceries.
I paid for fuel.
I tried to help him.
Eventually, after another DUI, he returned to Texas and went to rehab.
I prepared a room for him in my own house so he wouldn't have to move back in with our parents.
I wanted to help him regain his dignity.
But his problems eventually began affecting my own home and my rental business.
I had to ask him to leave.
And suddenly, I became the enemy.

Has anyone here experienced the silent treatment as a form of punishment?
For years, my brother refused to communicate with me.
I tried apologizing.
I tried talking.
I tried understanding.
Eventually, I had to accept that I could not control his choices.
That was one of the hardest lessons of my life:
You cannot make another person change.
You can only decide how you will respond.

Through prayer, I eventually moved to Austin.
I needed distance from the chaos.
I had heard the term “toxic person” before, but I didn't really understand it until I realized that some relationships can affect the mind, body, and soul in destructive ways.
I could not imagine bringing someone I loved into that environment.
Eventually, I realized that I had to establish boundaries.
Not because I hated my family.
But because I needed to stop participating in patterns that were destroying me.
I wanted to end the generational curse.

My first ACTS retreat in 2024 became an important turning point.
I prayed for God to help me resolve my family situation.
And something happened that I had been praying about for years:
I was able to convince my entire family to attend therapy together.
I prayed.
I spoke with my deacon.
I found a Catholic therapist.
For the first time, I felt heard.
We confronted difficult truths.
And privately, I received validation and support.
The experience did not magically fix my family.
But it helped me accept something important:
I had done what I could.
The rest had to be surrendered to God.

Jesus says in Luke 14:
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
That sounds shocking.
But I don't think Jesus is telling us to literally hate our families.
I understand it as a call to put Him first.
Jesus must come before everything.
Even family.
Even reputation.
Even our own desires.
“Let the dead bury the dead”.
I have forgiven my family.
I have accepted that some things may never change.
And I have learned that sometimes love means loving someone from a distance.
Putting Jesus first has given me the strength to establish boundaries and walk away from destructive behavior—regardless of who is doing it.

My encounter with Jesus took place almost twenty years ago.
While I was away at college, I thrived.
I came out of my shell.
I played guitar in talent shows.
I became Homecoming King or Mr. UTD.
I found friends.
I started dating.
I met a Pakistani woman and fell deeply in love.
We shared many cultural values, but we had different faiths.
At the time, I reasoned that every religion was equally valid.
I thought:
“If God is love, then love will conquer in the end.”
Love did eventually conquer.
But not in the way I expected.

After college, I chose a career in finance.
I worked long hours—sometimes more than eighty hours a week.
Eventually, I landed what I thought was my dream job at JPMorgan Chase.
At twenty-five, I was earning a six-figure income.
From the outside, everything looked successful.
But I was surrounded by the worship of money.
Consumerism.
Status.
Drugs.
Sex.
Alcohol.
I didn't realize it at the time, but money had become an idol.
I thought I was building a life.
But I was actually losing sight of what mattered.

I was saving money to get married.
My older brother had just celebrated his own marriage and the future looked so bright.
This was the high point in our family’s life, but it was short-lived because within 2 months
I received a call from my Dad, frantically telling me my brother was in the hospital.
I rushed there.
He was unconscious.
His skin was yellow.
He was connected to tubes and machines.
The doctors told us he was suffering from alcohol-induced liver failure.
They even discussed the possibility of a liver transplant.
This was how we discovered my older brother was an alcoholic.
I had never seen my father so broken.
I saw him cry.
I saw my mother cry.
My brother eventually stabilized, but the road to recovery was difficult.
There were relapses.
There was fear.
There was uncertainty.
Our entire family lived in anticipation of the next crisis. Our nervous systems were fried.
Eventually, my brother found recovery.
He returned to God.
He began attending Alcoholics Anonymous.
He became a father.
His marriage survived.
And he rebuilt his life.
That experience taught me something:
Recovery is possible.
People can change.
People can come back.
People can be redeemed.

But during all of this, my relationship fell apart.
When I needed her the most.
My girlfriend left.
I was devastated.
I had lost the relationship I thought would become my marriage.
I was working constantly.
My family was in crisis.
My faith was lukewarm.
And I felt completely lost.
I had nowhere else to turn.
So I prayed.

I asked God a question that I had never dared to ask before:
“Are You real? If You are real, show Yourself to me.”
I thought that if God answered, He would probably answer through Scripture.
So I randomly opened my high-school Bible.
My finger landed on Psalm 46:
“Be still, and know that I am the Lord, thy God.”
I stopped crying immediately.
I thought:
“That was strange.”
So I opened the Bible again.
This time, I landed in Luke Chapter 11, where Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray.
Jesus says:
“Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins…”
And then:
“Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
I felt as though God was communicating with me through Scripture.
My ego was crushed.
My plans had failed.
Every time I tried to control my life, something seemed to blow up in my face.
So I made a decision:
I was going to give God control.
Who I thought I was died that night.
And in the morning, something new began to live.

For the first time, I began letting go of my plans.
I kept coming back to Jesus.
Heartbroken.
Confused.
But persistent.
I started noticing tiny “coincidences”—events that seemed to arrive at exactly the right moment.
I began keeping a journal of them.
Eventually, I stopped calling them coincidences.
I began to see them as providence.
My prayer became:
“Not my will, but Yours.”
Luke 22:42.

Then something strange happened.
For twenty-five years, I had kept my hair extremely short.
My mother used to shave our heads when we were children.
But during this period of surrender, I felt an unusual desire to stop cutting my hair.
I didn't understand why.
I simply felt compelled to stop trying to control my appearance.
Eventually, I began to recognize parallels with the Nazirite tradition and figures such as Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist.
I looked ridiculous.
I was wearing thousand-dollar suits to work with a giant mushroom of hair growing out of my head.
My coworkers noticed.
Management noticed.
But my production was higher than ever, so they let me be.
Eventually, I stopped caring so much about money.
With the Lord’s help,
I left finance.
I started a completely different business.
I became a full-time landlord.
I remodeled houses.
I worked with my hands.
And I started boxing.
I didn’t want to be a punching bag or a doormat anymore.
I also began fasting and praying.
Over time, I lost about forty pounds.
My external life was changing.
But something much deeper was happening inside me.

Sometimes I would wake up from nightmares.
I would relive my brother's hospitalization.
Arguments with my ex-girlfriend.
Even my conversations with God.
One night, after 9 months of profound sadness, I woke from a nightmare covered in a cold sweat.
I stumbled into the bathroom.
It was early Sunday morning.
The room was dark.
I had not shaved in weeks.
My hair and beard were longer than they had ever been.
I reached for the light switch.
The light came on.
And in the mirror, I saw Jesus Christ.
For a moment, I felt as though I was looking directly into His eyes.
My eyes are dark brown.
His appeared golden. He looked at me with the most love and compassion that I’ve ever seen.
I cannot adequately explain what happened.
It lasted only a second or two.
But I knew what I was seeing.
I began to cry.
Then I fell to my knees.
I was laughing and crying at the same time.
I thanked the Father for loving me.
I remembered the prayer I had made months earlier:
“God, if You are real, show Yourself to me.”
And in that moment, I felt that He had answered.
I felt as though my old identity had died.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold new things have come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
I was no longer defining myself by my failures, my family, my career, my appearance, my relationships, or my accomplishments.
I understood myself as a son of God.
And I finally understood who my real Hero was. I don’t even have to wear a costume to look like Him.

Jesus says in John 15:
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit…”

This brings me to the parable of the wheat and the weeds.
Jesus tells us that an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat.
The servants want to pull the weeds immediately.
But the master tells them to wait until the harvest, because pulling the weeds too early could damage the wheat.
Eventually, there will be a separation.
The wheat will be gathered and placed into the barn.
The weeds will be gathered and burned.
And so it will be at the end of the age.
Jesus will send out his angels to gather out of His kingdom all who cause others to sin and all
evildoers. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, while the righteous will shine like the sun.
-Matthew 13:24

In studying this parable I learned that the weeds are also identified as: chaff, tares, darnel, false
wheat, and poison rye, a toxic plant. Weeds are invasive because they choke, steal nourishment, and cause damage and death.
“The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy”
-John 10:10
When the wheat is mature they bow down; but the weeds stand proud.
This is how the angels will know how to separate between the two.
The enemy is the devil, the one who corrupted humanity.
He is the original narcissist who wanted to be worshiped and adored rather than give God the glory.
The original sin was pride.
Jesus is the sower who sowed good seed.
The wheat are the faithful who produce good grain.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground it remains just a grain, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”
Grain is then ground into flour which is mixed with water and salt to become dough.
Jesus gives rise to the dough to become the bread of life.
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened.”
-Matthew 13:33
The wheat are evident by their humility, empathy, love, compassion, and basically embodying the character of Jesus.

The Weeds, as Jesus tells us:

“You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

-John 8:44

It has taken me nearly 40 years to be able to discern for myself the nature of the wheat and the tares.

Scripture gives us a way to examine our lives.
The fruits of the Spirit are:
Love.
Joy.
Peace.
Patience.
Kindness.
Goodness.
Faithfulness.
Gentleness.
& Self-control.
And Galatians warns us about the opposite:
Sexual immorality.
Impurity.
Idolatry.
Jealousy.
Outbursts of Anger.
Selfish ambition.
Envy.
Drunkenness.
And other destructive behaviors such as harming children:

The rich and powerful molesting and killing children
Feminism with the destruction of the family and abortion of children
Scandals within our own church and the abuse of children

These aren't merely labels for other people.
They are warnings for us.
Because every one of us has the capacity to produce good fruit or bad fruit.

When I lacked this discernment in dating, I attracted one-sided relationships.
When I failed to discern in some friendships, they took advantage of my kindness
Then 5 years ago, I guess the devil got tired of me sharing the Joy of my encounter with Jesus so he sent a messenger in the form of a tenant.
I had caught this person stealing.
When I confronted him, he became hostile. His face contorted.
His eyes became completely black like a shark’s.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as if to say “danger”
I left the room. This was our last conversation before he moved out.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of
light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the
light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”    -Matthew 6:22
Those experiences made me realize that spiritual discernment matters.
But discernment is not the same thing as condemnation.
We are called to recognize the fruit.
We are called to protect ourselves from evil.
But ultimately, judgment belongs to God.

So how do we become more like the wheat and less like the weeds?
I remember it with three letters:
A. Admit.
Admit that you are a sinner.
Admit that you need God.
Repent.
Go to Confession.
Stop pretending that you can save yourself.
B. Believe.
Believe that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins.
Believe in His death and Resurrection.
And believe in His true presence in the Eucharist.
C. Come.
Come to Jesus.
Kneel in prayer.
Come to Adoration.
Come to Mass.
Come into the presence of God.
If you want a relationship with God, then visit His house.
Don't only ask Him to come to you.
Humble yourself, Go to Him.

James 4:6 tells us:
“God opposes the proud but bestows favor on the humble.”
And then:
“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”
That is what Adoration means to me.
It is drawing closer to God through His beloved Son.
When we kneel before the Eucharist, we are not worshiping an idea.
We are placing ourselves before Jesus.
We are surrendering our pride.
Our fear.
Our anger.
Our addictions.
Our relationships.
Our failures.
Our future.
Everything.

Jesus also warned us that following Him would sometimes create division.
He said:
“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”    -Luke 12:51
He spoke about households being divided.
That verse has become very real to me.
My family is still complicated.
My father is getting older.
I have spent years asking him to confront his temper.
My older brother found recovery and changed his life.
That gives me hope that people can change.
I pray that my father can change too.
I pray for my younger brother.
And I pray for myself.
Because ultimately, I cannot change them.
I can only surrender them to God.

I don't know what the future holds.
I don't know what God has planned for me.
But I do know this:
I want to bear good fruit.
I want to become more loving.
More patient.
More humble.
More courageous.
More forgiving.
More faithful.
I want to become the kind of man who can kneel before Jesus and say:
“Not my will.
Yours.”

For years, I thought my heroes were Superman and Batman.
Then I thought money and success were the things that would save me.
Then I thought a relationship would complete me.
Then I thought I could fix my family.
I was wrong.
None of those things could save me.
Only Jesus could.
And Jesus did.
The greatest Hero isn't super strong, although He did carry the sin of the world.
He isn't a billionaire, although everything belongs to Him
He didn’t seek fame or celebrity, although everyone knows Him by name.
He isn’t a soldier or famous fighter, but He did defeat Death.
The greatest Hero is the One who willingly sacrificed Himself for people who didn't deserve it.
The One who forgives sin.
The One who searches for the lost.
The One who welcomes the sinner.
The One who tells us to love our enemies.
The One who takes our brokenness and offers us redemption.
The One who died for us.
He’s the One and Only
Jesus Christ, the greatest Hero who ever lived.
And when everything else has been stripped away—
when family can't save you,
when money can't save you,
when your career can't save you,
when relationships can't save you,
when your own strength fails—
What most people don’t realize:
Jesus is all you need, until He’s all you have left.
He is the way.
The truth.
And The life.
Forever and ever.
Amen.
Thank you, and may God bless you all.