I hope you're all doing well as we move into the meat of the semester. Remember that if life starts to feel overwhelming, embrace God even more instead of abandoning Him so He can give you the grace to faithfully make it through.

Last week, we got together for our first meeting of the semester and had a transformative discussion with Br. Jacob about the realities of temptation and how it can be a catalyst for our growth in the faith. TONIGHT, join us at 8pm in Newman Hall (in the St. Tom's basement) for the annual BCM Super Smash Bros. Tournament! It'll be an awesome time of friendly competition and fellowship, and it's totally fine if you've never played before since the game is mostly about who can button mash the best. Also, if you have extra controllers that connect to Nintendo Switch or if you have your own Switch consoles with Smash Ultimate, bring those if you can so we can get as many games going as possible.

As per usual, the Bacon Boys are reuniting in the gathering space after the 5:30pm daily Mass (about 6:05pm) to down as many super pizzas as humanly possible at Mad Mushroom. You can always meet us at the restaurant if you can't meet us at St. Tom's to walk over.

As with all BCM meetings, all men (Catholic or not) in any stage of their Purdue journey are welcome, so invite your friends! Every meeting is different, so if you haven't been before or feel like you're too busy to go to all of them, us leaders would love to have you whenever you can make it.

Other announcements:

On Friday, we will continue our weekly visits to the St. Francis Perpetual Adoration Chapel in Lafayette. Meet us in the gathering space of St. Tom's at about 5:45pm so we can leave for the chapel by 6pm, and join us to get dinner after as a group.

On Saturday, we will hold the First Saturday Marian Devotion at 9:30am in Room 3. We engage in prayer, meditation, confession, and celebration of the Eucharist to make reparation to the suffering heart of Our Lady. It is an awesome opportunity to grow closer to our Mother, who guides us in our search for true masculinity and draws us closer to her Son.

On Monday, we will join to pray our weekly Rosary Walk after the 5:30pm daily Mass (about 6:05pm). Meet us in the gathering space to spend ~20 minutes in prayer to Mary through Purdue's campus, serving as a powerful witness to our faith for others. All people are welcome to join, and we'd love for you to pray with us if you've never been before.

Last week, Br. Jacob painted a picture of how we become enslaved when we give in to temptation. When we make a habit of something that doesn't draw us any closer to God, we streamline a path to vice that is freshly paved while the path to God is wild, treacherous, and mostly untraveled. So how do we break free from the things of this world when choosing to remain bound by them is so easy and accessible? The answer is not that we muster up enough willpower to finally say no, and by doing so make ourselves worthy of God. Instead, we encounter God in prayer, in the messy and honest reality of our struggle, and He sets us free.

This is not easy to do. More than just petitioning God to help us, it requires us to bare our hearts to God and be truly vulnerable with Him in our brokenness and shortcomings. As a perfectionist, this is tough for me, because I want to believe that it's possible for me to do everything right for God, and it's hard for me to accept that I can't be perfect for Him. We have to have the humility to realize we need God and the faith to trust that He can deliver us from our bondage. When we meet God in prayer, our humility and faith make possible a relationship with Him so deep that God makes his dwelling within us, through Christ Jesus. He lives in us, so when we refuse to be enslaved to the world, we do it through Christ. When we live only through ourselves, we are bound by ourselves, imperfect in our humanity. When we live through Christ, we are bound by Christ, who because He is God has no bound. Through Christ, we can do anything, and the challenges we face are nothing compared to Him.

To become free from what's holding us back from God, we have to 1) acknowledge we need God, 2) be vulnerable and trusting with God in prayer, and 3) let prayer transform us so Christ lives within us. Whether it's attachment to your phone, preoccupation with the opinions of others, unwillingness to embrace discomfort, or some other struggle with distraction or sin, know that God loves you and can free you from what chains you down. We just have to let Him.

Hope to see you all tonight!
Praying for each and every one of you!

St. Benedict, pray for us.

- BCM Leaders