TOTUS TUUS is a Catholic youth program dedicated to sharing the Gospel and promoting the Catholic faith through catechesis, evangelization, Christian witness, and Eucharistic worship.  The goal of TOTUS TUUS is to help young people develop their relationship with Jesus Christ so that there is an intimate friendship whereby he may lead them to the Father in the Holy Spirit.  To accomplish this, there are five things emphasized in this program: The Eucharist, Marian Devotion, Catechetical Instruction, Vocational Discernment, and Fun! We strive to help young people to understand their faith through catechesis so that they may live it in today’s world.  We do this in such a way that it is fun for both teachers and youth alike.  A TOTUS TUUS teacher helps to make the faith real to the youth as a way of life and love and not simply a set of rules and obligations.

The program calls upon college students and seminarians from across the United States to carry out this mission. Those hired are trained and put onto teams of four (two men and two women) to go out into a parish for a week, putting on a "parish mission" in order to teach the faith and inspire the young. They do this for eight weeks. In addition to trying to communicate our faith and translate that into daily life, we also strive to foster Christian vocations. It is our firm belief that vocations, callings from God, can only be heard and responded to if one is living a Christian life. We strive to foster this, first and foremost, in our teachers by providing them with an understanding of the faith, a strong prayer life, and an opportunity to witness to their faith. The teachers sign a “covenant” in which they promise to be open to God’s will for them and to actively discern it. Because the teachers are striving to live an authentic Christian life and are actively discerning their vocation, they can better help the youth to do the same.

"Totus Tuus. This phrase is not only an expression of piety, or simply an expression of devotion. It is more.  At first, it had seemed to me that I should distance myself a bit from the Marian devotion of my childhood, in order to focus more on Christ. Thanks to Saint Louis of Montfort, I came to understand that true devotion to the Mother of God is actually Christocentric, indeed, it is very profoundly rooted in the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption".  

-John Paul II in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Mondadori Editori, 1994