‘All or nothing’: Totus Tuus missionaries grow in faith alongside children through summer of service

What are we all called to be?

John Bytnar stood in front of 12 first- and second-graders in the St. Anselm parish center and waited for their response.

A hand shot up. “Saints!”

That’s right, Bytnar confirmed. He pointed to the icon of Blessed Carlo Acutis on the back wall, the soon-to-be first millennial saint who died at the age of 15.

Just like Blessed Carlo, “our path to sainthood starts now,” Bytnar said. “You guys can start to be saints right now!”

Bytnar, who is about to start his second year at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, was one of four young adult Totus Tuus missionaries ministering for the week at St. Anselm Parish in Creve Coeur. Throughout the summer, teams of missionaries travel to different parishes each week to host a day program for first- through sixth-graders and share their own testimony and witness with teens in middle and high school at an evening program.

In the classroom next door to Bytnar, missionary Catherine Hermanson discussed the fifth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary — the crowning of Mary as queen of heaven and earth — with her class. A good queen listens to the people and petitions to the king on their behalf, Hermanson said.

“This is called intercession — can you say that with me?” she said. “When we pray to Mary, we’re asking her to take our needs to her son. Because who can change our lives?”

“God!” they replied.

Marian devotion is one of the five pillars of Totus Tuus, which also include the Eucharist, catechesis, vocational discernment and fun. Totus Tuus is Latin for “Totally Yours,” St. John Paul II’s motto, taken from St. Louis de Monfort’s “True Devotion to Mary.” Each summer, the program focuses on a set of mysteries of the Rosary and another catechetical topic (this year, the Apostles’ Creed).

Sixty-six children participated in the day program this year at St. Anselm, which has been hosting Totus Tuus since 2021, with another 27 in a concurrent Catechesis of the Good Shepherd camp for 3- to 5-year olds. Several teens from the St. Anselm youth group volunteered during the day program in addition to participating in the evening program, youth minister Courtney Rockamann said.

“For most of my teens, this is one of their favorite weeks of the year,” she said. One teen shared with her that he was reminded of “what it really means to have the faith of a child. We hear that in Scripture, but here we get to see it lived out, which is really cool.”

Bytnar was one of those high school volunteers at St. Anselm in years past, before becoming a missionary himself. As the final week of the summer drew to a close, he hoped that above all, the children and teens came away with a foundational belief: God is real, and He loves you.

“You see the difference between telling the first- and second-graders that God loves you, and they’re like, ‘We know!’ And then as it moves up the grades into the high school program, how that starts to fall away and how people stop believing that over time,” he said. “It’s the same message that we’re telling each kid, no matter how old they are: God loves you. We just have to tell them in different ways so that really start to understand and believe it.”

‘All or nothing’

While hundreds of children and teens were formed in the faith throughout the seven weeks of Totus Tuus this summer, just as important was the formation of the missionaries themselves.

Team leader Hermanson, a rising senior at the University of Mary in South Dakota, first served as a Totus Tuus missionary two years ago in her home Archdiocese of Denver. She hadn’t planned on returning, but God led her to St. Louis this year, she said.

“There’s been moments of yes, the Lord really wanted me to be here. And He’s done more in my heart than I thought was possible,” she said, “even just through the little things, the prayer routine, placing myself in front of the Blessed Sacrament every day and knowing that transformation is taking place. It always surprises me to notice how Totus Tuus is for the kids, but it’s also for the missionaries, 100 percent.”

Their schedule includes a rigorous prayer routine of the Liturgy of the Hours, a Holy Hour of eucharistic adoration, and a team Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet, as well as daily Mass during the day program. That connection to prayer, especially through daily Mass, is something Hermanson desires to continue as she returns to college life in a couple weeks.

“The Lord meets me in (daily Mass), and it’s that moment of, even in the chaotic midst of our lives, He is the stable force that grounds us,” she said.

Prayer was also a big area of growth for Maria Heithaus, a rising sophomore at Maryville University who was inspired to become a Totus Tuus missionary after participating as a high schooler at Sacred Heart Parish in Florissant.

“It has helped me so much to grow in my prayer, and I think that really surprised me,” she said. “I thought that it was just going to be something I struggled with forever, so the ability to be able to go to adoration and just sit and pray and talk to God has been really amazing.”

She also grew in the virtue of patience, she said with a laugh, as she learned to control a classroom of elementary-aged children. “And learning that, I can move forward in my faith and patience with God, and patience with my prayer life when I feel like I’m not getting a response or things like that,” she said.

As a seminarian, Bytnar appreciated the chance to see priests joyfully involved in parish life around the archdiocese. The team spent a week at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Washington, where Bytnar got to see Father Donald Morris “in his natural habitat.”

“He was just going down the slip and slide in his cassock and collar and everything. And just the way he was present in his parish community was really inspiring to me,” he said. “There’s a lot of fears about, well, what is it like to be a priest? And how is loneliness a part of that? Are you stuck in a rectory? And seeing him interact in his community, where everyone knew him and he knew the kids, it just helped crush those fears and was really inspiring.”

For Mary Grace DiCarlo, a rising senior at Benedictine College who attends St. Clare of Assisi Parish and the Oratory of Sts. Gregory and Augustine, her growth can be summed up in one phrase: All or nothing. During training with the archdiocesan Office of Youth Ministry, the missionaries learned about Sister Clare Crockett, a modern Irish religious sister who adopted that motto.

“And I told that to the kids over and over again, that we have to give ourselves totally to Jesus through Mary,” DiCarlo said. “And the more I said it, the more I was just convicted of it in my own heart, that I need to say yes to Jesus. And I need to say yes quickly.”

After serving this summer, “I’m quicker to say yes, instead of, ‘I’m going to wait until I’m absolutely sure,’” she continued. “No, I’m going to go for it, because the saints are the people who take the steps and aren’t afraid to fall. It’s all for you, Jesus — there’s no going halfway. It’s either all or nothing.”

Totus Tuus

Totus Tuus is a program of the archdiocesan Office of Youth Ministry. Teams of young adult missionaries travel to different parishes each week to host programming for the parish youth. Each day of the week, missionaries teach first- through sixth-graders about the Catholic faith through classroom sessions and engaging activities. Missionaries then share their own testimony and witness with teens in middle and high school at an evening program.

To learn more, visit stlyouth.org/totus-tuus.