VALPARAISO – “You’ll be loving, you’ll be leading, and there is nothing like giving it your all,” Bishop Robert J. McClory told the Diocese of Gary’s Totus Tuus missionaries as they spent a week training at Camp Lawrence before beginning a summer inspiring youth at a series of weekly parish programs that began June 7-13 at St. John the Evangelist in St. John.
Two teams of four, college-age missionaries, three local and five from other dioceses around the country, are serving in Northwest Indiana this year. After all starting at SJE, they then split up for the next five weeks, working at separate parishes.
The schedule includes St. Mary in East Chicago and Holy Family in LaPorte – June 14-20, St. Paul in Valparaiso and Nativity of Our Savior in Portage – June 21-27. After a break during the week of June 28-July 4, the two teams will resume programs at St. Bridget in Hobart and St. Patrick in Chesterton – July 5-11, St. John Kanty in Rolling Prairie and St. James the Less in Highland – July 12-18, and Queen of All Saints in Michigan City and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Valparaiso – July 19-25.
Teams work with youths entering grades 1-6 during the day, Monday through Friday, and meet with junior and senior high schoolers from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the same parishes, Sunday through Thursday.
To register a child for the program, contact the preferred parish directly.
“Totus Tuus, Latin for ‘Totally Yours,’ is exciting, lots of fun and an opportunity for kids to learn about the Catholic faith by praying and celebrating the sacraments throughout the week,” said Sean Martin, who directs the summer program as diocesan coordinator of Catechesis and Faith Formation. “I hear from parents that their children have been changed by Totus Tuus; they want to know what makes their kids want to pray the Rosary every day and attend daily Mass.”
Following a six-year cycle, Totus Tuus concentrates on The Seven Sacraments in 2025. Bishop McClory paid a visit to the training camp on June 4 during which he taught a lesson on “Penance – Healing the Wounds of Sin,” celebrated the daily Mass for the young missionaries, and shared lunch with the NWI group as well as their training partners from the Diocese of Lansing and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
“Our young people need to know the love of Christ and how to live the faith,” said the bishop. “Totus Tuus is celebrating joyfully the gift of our faith. All of our parishes have expressed their gratitude for what an impact it has made. This program covers a wide range of young people and it’s great to see these young adults committed to sharing their faith.”
This year’s Totus Tuus missionaries for the Diocese of Gary are:
Patrick Cullars, 20, of Munster, is a third-year seminarian studying Philosophy at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minn. He looks forward to “facing a wide range of situations” while gaining experience working with children as he journeys toward the priesthood. “I have established a prayer life now and am dedicated to teaching; I think my biggest strength is having established a rhythm to my days. His favorite Totus Tuus activity is the silly songs taught to the youngsters every day. “We try to get the kids prepared for their lessons with songs and skits. We don’t want to calm them down – we want to get them excited,” he said. “Junior high kids can be unconfident and quiet, but we want to be vulnerable and convince them that we can be someone to talk to about their faith or anything.”
Caroline Wildfang, 18, of LaPorte and Queen of All Saints in Michigan City, just graduated from LaPorte High School and plans to study Mathematics and Political Science at Indiana University on a U.S. Army ROTC Scholarship. “I have volunteered with Totus Tuus at QAS, the St. Mary Food Pantry in Michigan City and the PAX Center, and I wanted to do something service-based this summer, particularly connected to my faith,” she said. “I’m most excited to teach the children about God, sharing my faith. We will take turns, teaching four classes a day by grade level.”
Leah DiCesare, 19, of LaPorte and Queen of All Saints, was baptized as a Catholic just last year and is a sophomore majoring in Elementary Education at Purdue University Northwest in Hammond. “I went to a youth group meeting at St. John the Evangelist and saw a flyer for Totus Tuus,” she explained. “I hadn’t heard about it before, but I knew immediately it was meant for me and I applied.” She said the summer youth program is a great fit for an elementary education major – “God spoke to me in that moment, and I knew it was meant to be because I was praying to find a church with an active youth group, and I was invited to SJE by a woman I met at the doctor’s office.”
Brendan Loughran, 19, of Canandaigua, New York, is a junior studying Business Management at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. “My sister was a Totus Tuus missionary two years ago, and I knew Sean from a visit he made to my college, so I read everything and prayed about it,” he said of his decision. “In talking to my mom, I realized it was a really good summer for me to devote myself to bringing the faith to young people and helping them develop their relationship with God. As one of six siblings and having taught vacation Bible school at my parish, I have some experience. I like the skits, and really anything that gets the kids excited about what we are learning that day.”
Emily May, 18, of Abita Springs, Louisiana, just graduated from St. Scholastica Academy in nearby Covington and plans to serve in the U.S. Air Force before enrolling at Franciscan University. “I’ve considered becoming a teacher, and I was attracted to Totus Tuus because it’s about working with little kids and forming friendships with people with a strong faith,” she said. “I came to Indiana because I wanted to travel and my mom, who originally told me about the program, knew Sean Martin from college (at Franciscan University). I am most excited about meeting all the kids and getting to know them.” May noted that teenagers can be “closed off, but we’ve been there, and we can use our vulnerability as a tool by opening ourselves up to them.”
Cade Campbell, 21, of Beverly, Ohio, is a senior at Franciscan University, majoring in Mechanical Engineering. “Jesus is the reason, and by being joyful and teaching youths about serious things in a light-hearted manner, we can convey that,” Campbell said. “Children have a perspective you’d never see otherwise, and I’ll probably learn more from them than they’ll learn from me. Teaching will be the best part of the program, answering questions and seeing the kids actively participating. The Eucharist is Jesus. It’s pretty simple.”
Caroline Isom, 21, is from Miami, Fla., but as a senior at the University of Notre Dame majoring in Applied Mathematics and Psychology with a minor in Theology, she is no stranger to Indiana. “I felt a call to pastoral ministry and catechesis after volunteering at the Early Childhood Development program at ND and St. Pius X parish in Granger,” she said. “When they told me about Totus Tuus, it sounded like the ideal thing for me.” Anticipating her teaching role the most, she’s excited to watch her students become interested in the materials about the sacraments “and form a relationship with Jesus at Mass. The skits will be fabulous, and my group will be good.”
Michael Buckley, 22, is from Winnetka, Ill. He was baptized as an infant and received the sacraments of reconciliation and Holy Communion as a child, but returned to the Catholic Church and was confirmed just last year. He is a senior in the Liberal Studies program at Indiana University. “I wanted to do something holy with my summer and be in the presence of other young Catholics,” he said of his choice to join Totus Tuus. “It’s part of a broader movement in my life, including an awareness of my own sinfulness, which led me to spend time at a hermitage,” he said. “I look forward to answering their off-the-cuff, reality-based questions,” he said of his students.
Newly-ordained Father Ivan Alatorre, a Totus Tuus alumnus, helped put the missionaries through their paces by teaching songs and skits to them, as well as leading Eucharistic adoration sessions, just before his ordination. “They are a great group on fire for Jesus,” he said. “As Pope Francis said, we need to be Spirit-filled evangelizers open to the Holy Spirit so we can become witnesses to those we will encounter.”
Caption: Talking over their plans for the Totus Tuus summer program that began June 7-13 at St. John the Evangelist in St. John is one of two teams of missionaries for the Diocese of Gary, (from left) Brendan Loughran from Canandaigua, New York; Caroline Wildfang from LaPorte; Parick Cullars, a seminarian from Munster; and Emily May from Abita Springs, Louisianna. The group trained at Camp Larence in Valparaiso from May 29-June 6. (Marlene A. Zloza photo)
