Totus Tuus - Totus 2us

Agnieszka      

_{"For me Christmas is not only buying presents and eating good food but it is simply joy, joy, that Christ has come to earth to set us free and to give us life."}

Albert      

_{"I think Maria is a very special person. She brought Jesus, and Jesus is the way for us, for all people. So I think Mary is the precursor for the way, for the big way, to show us Jesus. "}

Aldona       

_{"For me Our Lady is, all my life, my way which I try to follow every day."}

_{Aldona gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Alicja      

_{"Holy Mary, she is my lady, she is my queen and she is the Immaculate Conception. If I stay with her so close, I won't be afraid of anything, anything."}

_{Alicja gives her coś o Maryi in English & Polish.}

Alina      

_{"Mother of God actually was my mother because my mother died when I was seven and since then, actually I pray to her for everything."}

_{Alina gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Alina      

_{"Our Lady is the best mother for me and she’s my guardian."}

_{Alina gives her coś o Maryi in English & Polish.}

Altona      

_{"For me, Mary is a big helper and I always can go ask her about everything. When I’m happy, when I’m sad, I’ve got a big friend."}

_{Altona gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Anna      

_{"For me , Mary is someone that walks with me every day. I see Mary in everyone's face and I can see it on my way to work."}

_{Anna gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Anna      

_{"When I think about Mary, I think about the gift of God. I remember a very specific time in my life where I was really seeking God and I turned to what for me from childhood was Mary, and I read this little booklet about the Devotion to Our Lady by St Louis de Montfort, and I decided to do that, the prayers and the consecration. And I'd have to say that was probably the moment when my true faith journey began."}

Barbara      

_{"Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen."}

_{Barbara sang Ave Maria facing Our Lady of Fatima in the Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome.}

Basia       

_{"I feel that Our Lady is my mother that probably I've never had before. I feel that I'm quite close to her and every day I can see her help, especially when I pray. Even when I don't pray I feel that she lifts me up and she helps me in my every day. And I can see this in my children too, as they are quite devoted to Our Lady."}

Beata      

_{"Our Lady for me is a mother who I refer to everyday."}

_{Beata gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Dominic      

_{"Just two years ago I started to look closer to God. God appeared in my life stronger than He did in the past. It was more that I started to see Him and He started to show me that the life I was living, I always knew that I wasn't happy but He emphasised changes in me and He gave me faith to be thankful for the change that appeared in me, and it was really strong. …  Just before we got married, I went to confession and I felt much, much better and I felt that God had taken everything from me. I felt stronger to get on with my life, I felt stronger to say 'no' to my addictions, I felt stronger not to do the things that Satan is giving us. Yes, I felt much stronger and then it was just better and better, and I started going to Communion, and my life is much, much easier now than it was before the wedding. It is now 1 year and 3 months and it's really good, even though I'm still a sinner, I'm still going on my knees because of my sins, but I know I have to come up, I have to feel sorry, but I can't allow myself to feel down for too long, as I used to do before - I was very miserable and felt sorry for myself. But I'm trying not to do that anymore, and I feel strong inside me and I feel God in me and in the people around me. .. And God is healing me every day since that day, and even before, and I'm thankful to God."}

Dorota      

_{"Maria for me is very important because she is the mother of Jesus  .. She takes care of all Polish people, of all mothers, of all children and all older people, and everybody who wants to get some help from her."}

_{Dorota gives her coś o Maryi in English & Polish.}

Dorota      

_{"Our Lady is the Queen of Poland and so this is my devotion to her."}

_{Dorota gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Edyta       

_{"Mary to me is like my mother. From when I was young, she always guided me and interceded for me, almost there as my friend and protector, almost like a more intimate connection to Jesus. She was always there as my support and my guide in trying to understand Jesus more and love him more."}

_{Edyta gives her coś o Maryi in English & Polish.}

Elizabeth      

_{"Mary is very close to me because I can think of her, go to her, anytime I want and she is always very warm to me and helpful. She never rejects me. What I like the most is that she is always so good."}

_{Elizabeth gives her coś o Maryi in English and Polish.}

Elwira      

_{"For me, Our Lady is the symbol of the Church because through baptism we are given birth into Christ. Mary gave birth to her son Jesus. Our Lady, just like the Church, is holy and pure. And we should always remember her words 'Do whatever he tells you'. We should always keep this in our minds and ponder it in our hearts."}

_{Elwira gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Emilia      

_{"Mother Mary is somebody very wise to me, I think of her as a very wise woman. Many people might say she’s the first port of call but I think of her as the last hope very often."}

Eva      

_{"For me, Mary is the Mother of God. That’s the most important thing."}

Ewa      

_{"There are two sides of the Virgin Mary that I am particularly drawn to. The first one is as a wonderful mother who is always very welcoming to her children and who is somebody that you can just ask to hug you and she will do it spiritually. And somebody you can always turn to and you can cry your worries to and you can share your joy with. This is wonderful. The other side is just like the richness, the wealth of her womanhood. If you look through the Bible and you see all these wonderful women, she's kind of like the ultimate ideal of womanhood. .. She's like this wonderful role model for every woman to be what she's called to be and then it also makes you realise that God gives you strength to become as beautiful as she is, and because she fulfilled her vocation so beautifully. .. Because of her beauty she shows you more about yourself: what you are like and what gifts God has given you."}

Halina      

_{"Our Lady is the best mother."}

_{Halina gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Henryka      

_{"Mary is a very, very, very important lady and the Queen of heaven and all earth and all people."}

_{Henryka gives her something about Maria in English & Polish.}

Jakob      

_{"Maria is my mother, my saint mother."}

_{Jakob gives his something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Janek      

_{"As everybody knows, in Poland there’s a special veneration for Our Lady, Our Lady of Czechestowa."}

_{Janek gives his something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Joanna      

_{"Our Lady has helped me a lot in the past year so I suppose you could say she's my patron."}

_{Joanna gives her something about Maria in English & Polish.}

Julitta      

_{"I would like to say thank you to the Blessed Virgin Mary for everything, for everything that she has ever done for me, and I know that she is my mother and my queen, because she is the Queen of Poland. Anything I ask, I go to Częstochowa and I pray and pray and pray, and she always answers, always answers. She's the most wonderful mother and a wonderful person. I don't know how to say but I owe to her my life and everything I've got, and I'll just say I love her very, very much."}

Justyna      

_{"I really want to thank Our Lady. She brought me to life, actually. She helped me to actually be myself and to be courageous and strong."}

_{Justyna gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Kamel      

_{"The Virgin Mary is my mum, basically. I converted some time ago and I was always close to that town in Poland which is called Czestochowa, where many miracles have happened through the Virgin Mary and that place has a beautiful church which is known around the world. I went there one day, I just prayed, like I didn't really pray, I didn't really believe, I just asked "God, if you exist, Virgin Mary, if you exist, show me the truth." And there were 3 of us, not one of us believed at that time and in that year all 3 people converted through Mary and her blessed heart. And now every day I am just finding her power, her faith, and her humble and quiet heart, and how much she shows me the way to Christ and how wonderful she is to me. And it is very interesting because I just find out the way to pray through the rosary, which I was like so stubborn not to do for more than a year and a half.."}

_{Kamel gives his coś o Maryi in English & Polish.}

Kamel      

_{"In my country Maria is a very special person because we have a lot of prayers to her. Maria is very important in my life because she was with me when I was burnt and in hospital in Poland with a picture of Maria. I remember that I have a lot of stories with Maria in my memory. I very usually go to our Church with Maria in Czestochowska and I have a lot of time to spend with pictures of Maria and I usually go to the special celebrations of Maria so I am very close with Maria."}

_{Kamel gives his coś o Maryi in English & Polish.}

Karolina      

_{"Mary for me is almost like a guidance figure. She's a woman that I feel like empowered by. Everyone else follows like celebrity people whereas Mary for me is the more inspiring: she managed to have Jesus and she managed to bring him up and later on watch him die on the cross. The strength that she must have had to overcome that is quite really powerful and really speaks to me because it helps me to overcome my own daily problems, coz my own problems can't live up to the sort of problems that she had. It really inspires me to keep on going and never give up."}

_{Karolina gives her something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Katharina       

_{"Mary is for me a mother, she is a friend. I can always come to her, I don't have to be at church, I can just walk on the streets of London and talk to her. I know she's always there and she always listens. When I have a problem, she's the person I turn to. When I have a good day or I want to share something happy with her, I always come to her to say thank you for being there always for me."}

_{Katharina gives her coś o Maryi in English & Polish.}

Konrad      

_{"Mary is a mother and she is some kind of road to God."}

_{Konrad gives his something about Mary in English & Polish.}

Kris      

_{"Mary is my Mum."}

TOP CHAT with Kris    

_{about his 'St Francis's Tour' pilgrim bike ride, from Palermo (in Sicily) to Rome and Assisi, then over the Alps and back to Southampton, in memory of Debbie Rooke & raising money for the wonderful charity Mary's Meals.}

_{"When I went to the shops people would start talking about my beard, then they were intrigued where I was going because seeing someone with my beard was unusual, they would see my bicycle, my dirty clothes (because I had only 2 pairs of trousers for 5 weeks) ... People in the shops, I would pick up items I needed and then I would start conversation with the shop clerk and they would give me food for free. People on the street or on the camping site would approach me and just ask me where I was going and they would just give me money. I set off without any intentions of collecting money on the way and came back with almost 100 euros in donations, which was really amazing."}

_{Kris biked 2081 miles, raising £4117 for Mary's Meals (at the time of the interview) which equates to feeding 339 children for a year. (15 mins of TOP CHAT with Ruth, recorded in August 2014)}

Kristian      

_{"For me, Our Lady is our mother who's always able to help me and, whenever I have trouble, then she's the first person that I always come to."}

Krzysiek      

_{"When I think about Mary the thing that's mostly in mind is Cana, where Mary is kind of pushing Jesus into doing his first miracle. His first reaction is that it's not really his time yet .. even though, Mary says 'Ok, just. Do it. People are in trouble.' .. The second story I really like is a family story when my grandmother's sister during World War II got arrested by German soldiers and she was taken to the camp in Częstochowa from where she was supposed to be sent further away .. My grandmother's sister managed to escape the camp .. She went to the cloister, she prayed in front of the picture of the Virgin Mary, then she went to the train station. .. She was on the station, her train arrived and then she got a very, very strong feeling to go back to the cloister to see the Virgin Mary again. She had no idea why she would need to do it but she felt she had to do it. So she went back to the cloister (a 2km walk) and she found her mother there. .. It was a miracle that they managed to meet and they went back home happily."}