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ROGERS — When do learning about the sacraments and making a “human sundae” of a counselor share the same goal? When young people attending the Totus Tuus program, recently conducted for the first time in the diocese at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Rogers, come ready to learn the faith and stir up some serious fun.
Around 80 youth, in first to fifth grades, attended the day camp June 17- 21, while 31 junior high and high school students attended the evening sessions. Daily schedules for both sessions included the five pillars of Totus Tuus: the Eucharist, Marian devotion, catechetical instruction, vocational discernment, and lastly, but just as importantly, silly skits, songs, recess and water fights.
Totus Tuus, a summer catechetical program, translated from Latin to mean, “totally yours,” can be explained as vacation Bible school with a Catholic twist. The goal of the weeklong summer camp is to share the Gospel and to promote the Catholic faith within a fun environment.
What really sets the program apart is that Totus Tuus calls upon college students and seminarians in teams of four — two men and two women — to conduct a mini “parish mission” for first through 12th-graders for several different parishes.
For St. Vincent de Paul Parish, the Totus Tuus team consisted of four young adults from the Diocese of Tulsa who had been trained for two weeks and prepped to go to parishes deep in the panhandle of Oklahoma, one parish in Texas, St. Vincent de Paul in Arkansas and two parishes within the Diocese of Tulsa.
One of those was team leader and first-time teacher, Jerome Krug, 20, a third-year seminarian attending Conception Seminary in Missouri, who likened teaching in the program to being a missionary.
“Totus Tuus is a real walk in discipleship,” Krug said. “You are living out of your car and one duffle bag and learning to live off and accept the generosity of the people in the parishes that support you. It really teaches the generosity of God.”
Surprisingly, it was also a first-year seminarian who conceived of the idea for Totus Tuus back in the summer of 1987. When Sister Mary Francis Morriss, the diocesan director of religious education in Wichita, Kan., was asked for some religious sisters who could teach for the summer, she could find none. Bernard Gorges, a young seminarian, heard her plight and said “yes” to her request by creating and teaching a program in Girard, Kan., for one week.
Since that first summer, requests for his ever-growing program continue to roll in until his summers were filled and more help was needed to meet the demand. Although Totus Tuus initially served parishes in rural Kansas, it has now spread to 30 dioceses around the country and internationally.
Anthony Keiser, director of youth, young adults and campus ministry for the Diocese of Tulsa, has been involved with Totus Tuus for two years and wholeheartedly believes in the program. “It’s a sort of parish mission for kids and seeks to offer a faith immersion experience,” said Keiser, who visited the team on their last day in Rogers. “But I also see how these college students and seminarians grow in their own faith.”
Another unexpected advantage, Keiser pointed out, may be what happens behind the scenes. “One parish priest told me it didn’t just evangelize the youth, but his whole parish,” he said.
This may be due in part to the team arriving at a parish as the apostles, with nothing but a few personal items. Team members are housed at different parishioners’ homes, and dinner is served to the team in various homes during the week.
“Totus Tuus builds relationships with the youth and the older adolescents of the same generation from the context of living and learning the faith,” Krug said. “It’s this relationship-based evangelization that is the very ‘modus operandi’ of Jesus himself.”
“I think the program was a success and we would definitely want to use it again,” said Debbie Dufford, children’s ministry coordinator at St. Vincent de Paul. “Children are given the experience of Jesus through sacred Scripture and celebrating the Mass, adoration and Stations of the Cross. For some children, this is their first exposure to the richness of their faith.”
“Teaching Totus Tuus teaches you what grace means and why it matters,” said Spencer Moseley, a 22-year-old team member from Tulsa, who said he has been surprised by the strength he has found in traveling around to teach the program. Jessica Aguillon, 20, another team member and a three-year graduate of the Totus Tuus summer seminars, is back for her second summer of teaching.
“When I attended the program, the thing that got to me is that these were people my age and I saw that it was OK to love Jesus, and I wanted to do that all of the time, too,” she said.
“Kids today are not told enough that their deepest desire is to love and be loved and this is one of the best ways to help them find that love in Christ through a program style,” Moseley added.