Ascende Superius

1. Lifelong spiritual climb toward personal holiness and fulfillment of God's design. 2. To rise, ascend, move upward. Latin for "rise up," "come up to a higher place," or "ascend higher."

As you may have heard at Mass this weekend, our parish and school theme this year is Ascende Superius: to go higher. What does that mean in our daily lives? How do we go higher?

Like last year's Our Lady of Schoenstatt Project, once again, each Sunday at Mass, we will hand out Gospel cards. The format will be similar, with a quotation from that Sunday's Gospel on one side. However, on the back side, you'll see something a bit different.

Ascending the mountain to holiness only comes about through intentionality. There is a line at the top that reads, "This week I will go higher by..." Then there is a line for you to write on.

The idea is to pick something each week that you can do that helps in that intentional climb. Perhaps you'll pray for someone who is getting on your nerves, or maybe you'll put down the phone and take up reading the Magnificat with your morning cup of coffee. You could do it as a family and strive to have dinner together, at the table, without devices. Whatever your goal is that week, there are boxes for you to check off on the back of the card- seven for the days of the week.

Like the Mary jug (which isn't going anywhere- DON'T WORRY), there is also a physical component to Ascende Superius. In the front and back of the church, there will be clear jars with beads. Before or after Mass, place a bead in the jar for each day that you have completed your exercise. Then, feel free to place your card in Mary's jug, or hold onto it and see the ways in which you've grown over the year!

Our lives change when we turn from this world and ascend His mountain. As we fill up the one-foot-tall jars, we will see how high we can go together. Let's support one another in this exercise by taking one step higher each week.