Twenty-five high school students from Mitchell Catholic Parishes recently attended a Semper Leadership Retreat at Granite Springs Lodge in Alexandria, SD the weekend of March 28-30.
These twenty-five youth are members of the Semper Leadership Team, which plans and hosts the Semper Youth Ministry events for the high school youth in our parishes. This retreat was the second annual retreat for the Leadership Team to grow as a cohesive team and also reflect on their own spiritual life. The Pro Ecclesia Sancta priests, brothers, and sisters led the retreat.
Content included learning about the Pro Ecclesia Sancta spirituality, the importance of spiritual life, and their individual call to holiness.
"We also taught them about our principle of magis–to strive to do everything with excellence for the glory of God,” says Brother Bryan Esquivias, PES. “We then had them put these criteria into practice during the retreat as we taught them how to set the table nicely, among other things. We even had them help us cook meals, which, from their comments, sounded like they really enjoyed cooking together.”
Overall, the retreat coordinators and students felt it was a very fruitful experience, as they began to see themselves as a family within the leadership team and also grow in their own spiritual lives.
Semper was formed in 2023 and is coordinated by the Pro Ecclesia Sancta priests, brothers, and sisters. Semper consists of Semper College for college-aged youth and Semper Youth Ministry for high school-aged youth with the hope to expand middle school.
Semper College meets weekly on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 PM in the Holy Family Nazareth Room. Semper Youth Ministry hosts monthly events including mini-retreats with dinner, guest speakers and time for Eucharistic Adoration and other events throughout the year.
For more information, be sure to follow @Semper_college_ministry and @Semper_highschool_ministry on Instagram.