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It’s a bright, hot day in June, and in a classroom at the Cathedral’s family center in Gallup, Maria Constantino is teaching an energetic young class of first-grade students about hierarchies in Church clergy.
Aaron Acunin leads his students in a prayer before their afternoon class.
“Okay, we have priests, who say Masses and administer sacraments,” she says. “Does anyone know who the priests’ boss is?” One little boy raises his hand. “The bishop?” he volunteers. “Yeah! Good job.” Constantino writes his answer on a whiteboard. Elsewhere throughout the building, three of her teammates are teaching other grades as part of a weeklong youth ministry camp run by their organization, Totus Tuus. “Totus Tuus” is Latin for “totally yours”, popularized when Pope St. John Paul II adopted it for his apostolic motto. The program started in the late 1980s in Wichita, KS, with two teams of students assisting a local priest in catechetical ministry. It has since evolved into a nationwide program – dioceses and parishes throughout the country support teams of four, two men and two women, who live as missionaries for the summer. “The Totus Tuus missionaries go out to different parishes - one parish a week - and just put on a weeklong summer program for the kids,” explained Fr. Josh Mayer. Fr. Mayer, pastor of St. Mary in Bloomfield and St. Rose of Lima in Blanco, invited a team from the Diocese of Phoenix to his parishes last year. The parishes viewed it as such a success that a Totus Tuus team was invited back this summer, this time to three parish communities in the diocese: Bloomfield/Blanco, Winslow, and Sacred Heart Cathedral. Fr. Mayer described how the missionaries spend one full week at each parish, teaching elementary and middle school-age kids in the mornings and afternoon, followed by a high school teen session each evening. “They evangelize, catechize, have a lot of fun, help the kids get excited about 26
“Totally Yours” in Service Youth Missionary Program Expands Throughout Diocese the sacraments, all sorts of stuff.” For Aaron Acunin, a junior in college, and Marlee Bigsby, Sophomore, their assignments to the Phoenix program mark the first time either has spent a summer teaching younger students with Totus Tuus. “I teach 5th and 6th grade, so I try to teach it in a way that gives them something new. Most of them are really smart and know the material, so I’m trying to challenge them,” Acunin said. “It’s different with teens, though - you want to challenge them in the same way you want to challenge the kids, but you also want to make it in a way that engages them and is presentable to them.” Bigsby, who teaches 2nd and 4th grade students, agreed – “[younger kids] know some things about the sacraments, but it does have to be very basic. The teens, especially this group… it’s definitely a talk for young adults, and even some stuff I might tell one of my peers if I was talking to them about the Sacraments.” For Jose Lam, the fourth member of the team, each new parish in the Diocese
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of Gallup presented a new set of challenges and enjoyable experiences. “The kids change, the environment changes, the parish contact coordinator changes, our team dynamic changes because we get to know each other at different levels,” he said. “Winslow they were so happy that we were there. They didn’t even know us and they were so happy we were there. They were very supportive…so we were able to do our best to just be there for the kids.” Each team member stressed that any young person thinking of joining a Totus Tuus team should be prepared for a rigorous prayer schedule – a sort of “spiritual boot camp.” “I was expecting it just to be like ‘okay, you go out and you teach kids’”, Lam recalls. “But then I found out during the retreat that it’s all about personal holiness. I didn’t expect prayer to be such an integral part of it, so it was a very happy surprise. “ Constantino outlines the missionaries’ daily schedule: a rosary in the morning, Mass with the students each day, a daily Holy Hour and prayer in the
