Worship and Evangelization Outreach / Sam Rasp

Do you know a college student who loves Mary?

“Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria.” This Latin phrase was written by St. Louis de Montfort in 1712 in his book, True Devotion to Mary. The phrase in English is “I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart.” The more well-known, or summarized, phrase, is “Totus Tuus” or All Yours!

“Totus Tuus” was the episcopal motto of Pope St. John Paul II’s life and papacy. He believed, as St. Louis de Montfort taught, that as he gave his life to Mary he was truly doing the will of the Father. By giving of himself to Mary, he was able to love Jesus, her Son, as she did. He would be able to lay down all of his burdens at his feet.

As the Holy Father promoted this way of life, others throughout the world started to also give themselves to Mary in order to live a saintly life. This included Bernard Gorges, a seminarian for the Diocese of Wichita in Kansas who spent the summer of 1987 leading a class where he taught the faith to elementary school students in a parish. For the next several summers, Gorges did the same thing, at 15 parishes and with the aid of college students.

In 1993, this summer program expanded to the Diocese of Dodge City, Kan., and with it, the need for four teams of college students. With this expansion the summer catechetical program became known as Totus Tuus.

More than 30 years later, Totus Tuus is active in as many as 50 dioceses and archdioceses across North America and reaches thousands of young people each year. It is still a summer program where teams of college students are sent to different parishes each week within a diocese to put on authentically Catholic vacation Bible schools.

Totus Tuus missionaries receive excellent training focused on prayer, the sacraments and the truths of the Church. We have been blessed in the archdiocese to have Totus Tuus teams in 2019 and 2021 and we are recruiting our summer 2022 team right now.

Each year, we seek two men and two women in college, or recently graduated from college, who are willing to serve as Totus Tuus missionaries during the summer. Do you know any college students or recent graduate interested in serving God and his Church? Please tell him or her about Totus Tuus.

This opportunity would allow them to have a daily prayer life, receive training in order to teach their faith, and be an instrument of God’s grace to young people in six of our parishes. The commitment is paid and runs from

June 2 to July 31 with a week off during July 4. To learn more about the program or to apply, visit: totustuus.church/be-missionary.
 

(Sam Rasp serves as archdiocesan Evangelization and Discipleship coordinator. For resources that help create a culture of evangelization in your parish, contact him at srasp@archindy.org.) †