PORTLAND — Six communities in the Diocese of Portland are partnering with the diocese’s Office of Vocations to offer Totus Tuus (“Totally Yours”) for the first time in Maine this summer.

Totus Tuus is a summer program for first- to 12th-graders that is led by a team of college students and a diocesan seminarian. The team travels from parish to parish leading a weeklong program of learning and praying that demonstrates the joyful living of the Catholic faith and passes it on to young people. Through age-appropriate and faithful content, young people are motivated and equipped to live the call of the Gospel in today’s world. 

The team is comprised of Liam Gallagher, a seminarian for the Diocese of Portland, who taught Totus Tuus in Vermont last summer and will serve as team leader in Maine this summer; Emily Amann, a 2017 graduate of Scarborough High School, who served on the diocese’s Catholic Youth Leadership Team; Dale Brown, a 2017 graduate of St. Dominic Academy, who attends Holy Family Church in Lewiston; and Maddie Dichard, a sophomore at Franciscan University of Steubenville, who is a parishioner at St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Bangor.

The program will be offered on July 15 to 20 at Prince of Peace Parish, Lewiston.

“Totus Tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt” (“I am totally yours, and all that I have is yours”) began the episcopal motto of Pope Saint John Paul II. These words continue to inspire men and women from all over the world to entrust their lives completely to Jesus Christ through the Virgin Mary. Mary’s total devotion to the will of the Father is the model for Totus Tuus, as it seeks to respond to Pope Saint John Paul II’s urgent call for a “New Evangelization.” The program aims to instill these virtues in young people.

To read more about the Totus Tuus program or to register online, visit www.portlanddiocese.org/vocations/totustuus. For more information, call the diocese at 207-773-6471.