Jul 7, 2009
I taught Totus Tuus last summer. Totus Tuus is a program utilized by several dioceses around the United States in which a group of four college students travels from parish to parish to teach week-long sessions to both grade school and high school students. The four teachers form a team which becomes both the biggest blessing – and the biggest lesson of the summer.
As a teacher, I didn’t get to choose my team. Instead, it was created by the directors of the program who placed me with three other people I had never met. I had to learn to work, plan, problem-solve and relax with these new friends. By the end of the summer, I truly loved each of them and was grateful for our time together, however it took a lot of work to reach this point.
This work is not a bad thing. I grew up with my two best friends and have never had to work very hard at loving either one of them. Our personalities mesh perfectly. Because of this, I had never learned what it meant to choose to love a person. I could not dismiss my teammates as people I didn’t want to deal with, I had to choose to love them.
In the beginning it was difficult. A tone of voice could secretly set me off. Feeling misunderstood could raise my blood pressure. In general, I was often annoyed with these people who were so different from me. However, after reflecting on a conversation I had with an older woman about the difficulties of loving her spouse and how her resolve to choose love brought about real, deep, lasting love, I decided to test my own will power.