An epic water battle sprang to life outside the Marquette Catholic School in Virginia on Friday afternoon as kindergarten through 6th-grade students chased each other with squirt guns refilled from large barrels of water set up across the school’s lawn. The water fight was an event to conclude the week-long Totus Tuus Catholic summer youth camp program.
Totus Tuus, Latin for “Totally Yours,” is designed to share the gospel and build relationships with the church for young people. The name was inspired by Pope John Paul II.
The annual program operates as a parish mission for grade and high school students and is led by teams of four college-aged missionaries who travel to different parishes each week over the summer.
The summer camp wraps up the basics of Catholic teaching, including the Eucharist, catechism instruction, and the encouragement of vocational discernment, through fun activities such as games, music, skits, art, and fellowship.
The popular program started in 1987 in Kansas and started to spread between parishes until 1991, when it was formalized as “Summer Catechetical Program” later changing the name to the current Totus Tuus in 1993.
The program has rapidly grown throughout the Midwest and now covers the country and Canada and has become a summer fixture for Catholic school students each year.
Totus Tuus will travel to Hibbing’s Blessed Sacrament from July 19-24.
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