Teams of Tutus Tuus missionaries are traveling the diocese this summer to educate children on the 10 Commandments and mysteries of the rosary.
The program operates on a six-year cycle, focusing on a different element of salvation history and set of mysteries each year.
This summer, missionaries serving in the program visited parishes including Johnstown Church of the Ascension. They taught children the Luminous (light) Mysteries of the rosary and Commandments given to Moses in the Old Testament.
The program offers children a week of faith-based lessons complete with games, skits and the Church’s sacraments of the Eucharist and reconciliation provided each day.
Totus Tuus – meaning ‘totally yours’ in Latin – is offered to children in first through six grades during the day. A teenage program is offered in the evenings.
Father PJ Brandimarti, pastor at Church of the Ascension, who will become pastor at Mount Vernon-Danville St. John the Baptist Parish in mid-July, brought the program to Ascension for a second summer.
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“The feedback we got from the participants last year was absolutely phenomenal,” he said. “We had many people asking to repeat this experience again.
“The missionaries really do all the work, and the only thing that our parish needs to provide is room and board for them. It is very low impact on the staff and volunteers of the parish.”
Joshua Dyke, 24, a seminarian for the diocese studying at the Pontifical College Josephinum, expressed that serving as a Totus Tuus missionary fortified his vocation.
“This has been great,” he said, “living out that missionary spirit, connecting with families all over the place – which, that’s what priests do constantly – and then that I’m completely giving myself to other people.
“That’s also what the priest’s main spirit is: complete death of self towards others. ‘How can I make myself a complete gift of self to other people?’
“That’s exactly what I do on Totus Tuus. I think that most seminarians should do it just for the sake of discernment.”
Maggie Murphy, 19, a parishioner at Canal Winchester Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is also serving with the program this summer.
“Totus Tuus came to my parish when I was in middle school. I grew up doing the teen program,” she recalled. “I really enjoyed … everything that Totus Tuus had to give.
“When I was a senior in high school, my parish priest (Father Brian O’Connor), who was also the chaplain of Totus Tuus, asked me to be a missionary. I absolutely loved it, and so, I decided that I was going to do it another summer.”
Murphy, who is a second-year nursing student at Kent State University, enjoyed connecting with teens in the program. Missionaries share witness talks.
“A lot of us grew up in the same shoes that the kids we minister to are growing up in, so we can relate to them,” she explained. “We can relate to struggles that they might have, and we’re able to tell them how God worked in our lives.”
“The witness is cool because it shows how, over time, Jesus can transform your life, and it shows how you need to be patient sometimes,” said Clare Gigliotti, 13, a participant in the teen program.
“There’s just many different stories; it’s not all the same,” she said of missionaries’ talks. “I can relate to … small bits of what they say, and I find that helpful.”
The program also offers male- and female-specific breakouts.
“We talk about masculinity,” Dyke said of the boys group. “We talk about … how to … order our lives so that we can be the best men possible and really go out into the world and change society by loving Christ.”
“It’s a little bit deeper,” he added of the teen program, which “really helps them grow, too.”
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Elizabeth Hawbaker, a mother of six, has two children in the teen program and another in the day program. It was her family’s second year participating.
“They’re getting the perspective of the young adults sharing their faith. Hearing it from other people, other than just mom and dad, is really helpful in solidifying some of the things that we’ve taught them at home,” she said.
“Seeing friends who are growing in faith, having that devotion, you’re not singled out, like, ‘Oh, I’m the … only teenager, only little kid who believes in practicing my faith,’ but they see other people practicing their faith and taking it seriously.”
Totus Tuus also focuses on fun. Children in grades one through six begin each day with a game and skit. They break into age-based groups for instruction, which includes activities.
“This uniquely Catholic program brings a new and exciting model of faith and learning,” Father Brandimarti emphasized. “Any time we can combine a fun learning environment with prayer, that is a recipe for success for our young people.”
Founded in the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, in 1987, Totus Tuus has expanded to parishes across the United States. Its name signifies a total consecration to Jesus through Mary.