Bring your students on an unforgettable Catholic pilgrimage, even if you only have a few interested teens! Ascend brings parishes and schools together so your students can join a larger community of peers, without the pressure of recruiting an entire group.
A pilgrimage students want to go on.
Support youth ministers and teachers can count on.
Ascend is Verso Ministries’ high school pilgrimage program designed specifically for today’s teens and the adults who accompany them.
All while Verso handles the logistics, safety, and planning, so you can focus on ministry.
Maybe you have 25 students ready to go. Maybe you have 3. Ascend is built for both.
No awkward fundraising deadlines.. No pressure to “make the numbers work.” Just a clear path to saying yes.
Faith doesn’t live in a classroom alone. Ascend invites students beyond the familiar – into new cities, cultures, and sacred spaces where faith becomes real and personal.
As Pope Saint John Paul II said, “Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure.”
This is that adventure.
Pilgrimage expands students’ understanding of what it means to be Catholic. Through prayer, liturgy, and shared experience, they encounter the Church as it’s lived around the world, and discover their place within it.
Students journey alongside peers who are asking real questions about faith and life. Through prayer, shared challenges, and intentional conversation, they form friendships rooted in something deeper than a typical school trip.
Designed for teens. Support for leaders.
Every program balances reverence and joy – moments that move the heart and memories students talk about long after they return.
A pilgrimage is a trip of faith and as such can be made anywhere, by anyone. The first recorded Christian pilgrimage was St Helena’s trip to the Holy Land in 326AD, seeking to find the sites associated with the life of Christ. Centuries later, we continue this practice, traveling to a destination — whether it’s a holy site, outdoor space, or even near home — to seek and encounter God in a unique way. Anyone can travel to a location, but the pilgrim seeks to experience something deeper: transformation. In that way, a pilgrimage is never truly finished, because you come back changed, alive to new ways of living and thinking.
Throughout history, pilgrims have embarked on their journey for a variety of reasons: with particular prayer intentions, for healing, for personal conversion, in thanksgiving for answered prayers, or to do penance for sins. There are almost as many reasons to go on pilgrimage as there are pilgrims, but it stands as an opportunity to experience the spots where God has made his presence known most in time and space – whether that’s where Jesus walked, where Mary appeared, or where the saints have lived and worked.
Some of our most popular pilgrimage destinations are Rome, the Holy Land, and the Camino in Spain. But maybe Our Lady of Guadalupe is calling you from Mexico, or the peace of Lourdes is what you need in your life right now. If you’re not sure where to go on pilgrimage, call us to help you discover your next destination!
Nearly 100 years ago, Frassati wrote the words “Verso l’alto” on a now iconic picture of him as he scales the side of a cliff. Literally, the words mean “to the top” or “towards the heights.” Metaphorically, the phrase means, “orient your entire life toward God.” In all that you do, in all that you are, seek the path that leads you to God.
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