For the first time this summer, the Diocese of Columbus launched teams for the Totus Tuus missionary program.
Totus Tuus is a diocesan-based program that brings college-age or seminarian missionaries to parishes to share their faith with students in grades one-12. The program is centered around daily Mass, the rosary and learning the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
For six weeks in the summer, the missionaries spend a week at parishes serving the youth, and they share evening meals with host families from the parish.
“Totus Tuus comes from Pope St. John Paul II’s motto, ‘Totus Tuus Maria,’ so the idea is that the missionaries are ‘totally yours,’” said Father Brian O’Connor, the pastor of Canal Winchester St. John XXIII Church and administrator of Groveport St. Mary Church, who serves as chaplain of the Totus Tuus program for the Diocese of Columbus.
“So, when they’re at a parish, they’re serving the whole parish. They’re there for the parish; they’re there that week. So, it’s a good way to give themselves completely to Christ through Mary and through their service at these parishes.”
The program is split into a day program for children entering grades one-six, which runs Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and an evening program for adolescents entering grades seven-12, which runs Sunday through Thursday evening from 7 to 9 p.m.
Totus Tuus was started in the Diocese of Wichita in the 1980s and has since spread to other Catholic dioceses across the United States.
The program aligns with Bishop Earl Fernandes’ initiatives for evangelization and vocations in the Diocese of Columbus. The program allows missionaries to evangelize to parishioners, and it is an opportunity for both the missionaries and the students they serve to discern their vocation.
Totus Tuus was first offered at parishes in the Diocese of Columbus in 2016 with missionary teams serving from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
“We had two parishes in the diocese that first year,” Father O’Connor said. “Since then, we’ve been borrowing teams from Cincinnati as they’re able to provide them, but we were getting to a point where more and more parishes were interested, and it was becoming unsustainable to continue borrowing missionary teams from Cincinnati.”
This year, the Diocese of Columbus launched teams of its own through the diocese’s Office of Evangelization. There were two teams, each consisting of two young men and two young women.
The eight missionaries were diocesan employees for the summer and served in the name of the bishop, Father O’Connor said. They received a stipend and completed safe environment training with the diocese’s Office of Human Resources.
This summer, the six-week program began June 10, and the final week concluded July 28. Prior to serving, the missionaries had 10 days of training at St. Thomas More University in Crestview Hills, Kentucky.
Totus Tuus missionaries serving in the diocese this summer
Team one served at St. John XXIII, Gahanna St. Matthew, Delaware St. Mary, London St. Patrick and Powell St. Joan of Arc churches.
Team two served at Columbus St. Cecilia, Hilliard St. Brendan, Delaware St. Mary, Wellston Ss. Peter and Paul and St. Joan of Arc churches.
The two teams also spent a week outside of the diocese serving at Sandusky Holy Angels parish in the Diocese of Toledo and Cincinnati St. Ignatius of Loyola parish in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
“Three of our four male missionaries this year are seminarians, so that’s a blessing, which gives them a good opportunity to go around and see the diocese, to serve in a variety of parishes,” Father O’Connor said.
It is also a blessing for the youth they serve. The seminarian missionaries are a great witness for children at the parishes, said Liz Christy, the associate director of missionary disciple formation for the Diocese of Columbus.
Father O’Connor served as a Totus Tuus missionary in 2009, the summer after his first year of seminary.
“I thought it was a great opportunity for children to really learn about the Catholic faith, and it did such a good job of addressing the children in a really quality learning experience that wasn’t just entertainment,” he said.
“It allowed them to learn on an age-appropriate level and engage the faith on an age-appropriate level as Catholics – going to daily Mass, having the opportunity for confession throughout the week, learning about the rosary. There’s always a class on vocations in each curriculum every year, the importance of discerning your own vocation.”
Father O’Connor said the program was instrumental in discerning his vocation.
“I did love parish life, so that helped me continue my discernment toward the priesthood, and I know it’s helped many others in a variety of ways,” he said.
Totus Tuus missionaries perform a skit during a summer program.
Brandt Boyden, a parishioner at Lancaster Basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption, who will enter his second year of seminary at the Pontifical College Josephinum this fall, said serving as a Totus Tuus missionary this summer was helpful in discerning his vocation.
“Totus Tuus is like nothing I’ve ever done before,” he said. “It’s a foreign experience with new people. When I put myself in a new place with new people, God always shows me something new about myself.
“He has definitely solidified my pursuit of the priesthood but has also shown me the beauty of the family. The opportunity to serve these families in the parish is one that has and will impact my vocation toward whatever form the Lord wishes me to serve His people in the future.”
In addition to daily Mass and receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, the Totus Tuus program includes large-group, small-group and classroom sessions. The morning program, Father O’Connor said, has four class periods each day.
“The first class is always learning about a mystery of the rosary, so each year they learn about a different set of mysteries of the rosary,” he said. “This year, they’re learning about the sorrowful mysteries, and then the rest of the class periods are broken up into a six-year rotating curriculum.”
The six topics covered in the Totus Tuus curriculum include salvation history, the Creed, the sacraments, the 10 Commandments, the virtues and prayer. This summer, class periods focused on salvation history.
“Through this immersive encounter, we missionaries strive to show the kids that the life of faith is about total surrender to Christ; it is a joyful and difficult path,” Boyden said. “We teach them, as our meditations on the sorrowful mysteries this year indicate, that Mary can lead us to Christ, Who walks with us through the joys and pains.”
“What I think is wonderful about this program is that it’s very Marian,” said Meliza Saucedo, a parishioner at Columbus St. Stephen the Martyr Church and a graduate of Ohio Dominican University, who served as a Totus Tuus missionary this summer.
“The fact that we’ve shared with the children how to pray the rosary, I think can definitely be the start of loving her,” Saucedo said of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “Through the rosary, we can see the children open up their hearts and be open to what we want to share with them that week.”
For adolescents in grades seven-12, the evening program includes games, small-group sessions, snacks and a witness, or testimonies, from the missionaries, as well as night prayer or a Holy Hour.
“It gives me joy and hope to see the kids’ excitement in learning about and encountering Christ through fun classes, activities and opportunities for the sacraments,” Boyden said. “I’ve done youth ministry at summer camps before, but there is something so real about outreach in the parish that encourages my discernment for the diocesan priesthood.”
Boyden recognized how the program made a difference in the way children approached the sacraments and had a “renewed confidence to live a Christian life.”
“They learn so much in the classes, but what I see as most fruitful is in their preparation for confession and the (Holy) Sacrifice of the Mass,” he said. “It is also helpful for them to see us young men and women striving and that it’s not impossible to be a better Christian every day.”
While they are on mission, Father O’Connor said, Totus Tuus missionaries also commit to a communal prayer life.
“Every day, the missionaries are praying morning prayer, evening prayer, a rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet together,” he said. “Their prayer is as important as putting on the program. They’re only as successful as their communal prayer life is together.”
Boyden agreed that having a strong communal prayer life is vital to the program.
“We’ve realized that when prayer is not our first priority, the whole witness we give to the kids isn’t a high priority either,” he said. “Communal prayer gives us all one lens in how we should see our mission for each day, and at the same time, helps us to be accountable for each other in how we ought to communicate with God often.”
Saucedo also recognized that the missionaries’ prayers made for a fruitful program.
“We as a team have prayed novenas, and I’d say that’s what also helped us,” she said. “If we want to give the best of ourselves, we also want to be spiritually enriched and prepared in prayer, so that we can share what we ourselves have learned.
“Because of those novenas, I’ve felt that the Holy Spirit is really working when we’re brainstorming or coming up with activities or ideas, knowing that it’s really the Holy Spirit Who is working through us.”
During her week at St. Cecilia parish, which has a Hispanic ministry and strong Latino population, Saucedo, who is of Hispanic dissent, spoke with Spanish-speaking families in their native language.
“I think it’s so cool to be able to share the faith in both English and Spanish,” she said. “How will we be able to sustain the needs and meet the people where they’re at if the language is causing division?
“Being able to translate for the parents or … students in my class who were bilingual, to get their attention, I spoke to them in Spanish, … and they were able to build trust with that and the parents, too.”
Each week, the missionaries lived with a host family from the parish they served.
“The two girls go to one family and the two boys go to another family, ideally, and then they go to different families for host dinners every night, so they’re really on mission everywhere they’re going, sharing their stories,” Christy said.
“One of the things they practice in training is to gather their thoughts on their witness talk, and then they share that both with the teens and then also with the families.”
Sharing a witness talk, Saucedo said, helps students and families relate to the missionaries and know they are not alone in their struggles or in their faith journey. The missionaries can also share what prayers or sacraments helped them get through a difficult time.
Serving as a Totus Tuus missionary is an experience of “self-abandonment, being able to abandon what my desires were so the other person is happy, and sacrifice for sure,” she said. “I think that was the key word this summer – sacrifice – and love in everything.”