{"id":27193,"date":"2025-11-03T19:05:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/27193\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T19:05:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:05:06","slug":"bronx-youths-catholic-faith-journey-leads-to-majoring-in-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/27193\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx Youth\u2019s Catholic Faith Journey Leads to Majoring in Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicole Duarte, 18, is a dedicated volunteer with the Youth Ministry at Holy Cross Church<\/a> in the Soundview area of the Bronx, but just five years ago, going on 14, she started having serious doubts about the faith, to the point of telling her mom she no longer believes in God, nearly three years of rebellion had begun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was largely social media, where she was reading anti-Christian content.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thankfully, a theology teacher at Preston High School<\/a>, an all-girls Catholic school in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx, got Nicole interested in contemporary Christian music. That helped, and later so did attending parish and regional youth retreats. All this, coupled with going to Mass more frequently and realizing much more the significance and power of the Holy Eucharist has made her faith even stronger than before those nearly three years of doubt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, Nicole is a freshman at Fordham University<\/a>, where theology is her declared major. Her career plan: to teach children about the Catholic faith, religion class to help guide them in their faith journey. Which is what she\u2019s doing now to some extent as a young-adult volunteer for high school Youth Ministry at Holy Cross; and previously, she assisted with grade school catechism lessons at the parish. She\u2019s also served as a lector and altar server.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prayer and adoration\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHere at Holy Cross, I started teaching catechism last year to first-graders, and I realized I really like it,\u201d Nicole said last week in an interview at Holy Cross with The Good Newsroom. And thinking about the previous year, \u201cit was such a stark change (from rebelling). I started praying, went to Adoration. I started going to youth group meetings and everything,\u201d she said, recalling the early months of her junior year in high school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cIt\u2019s really helpful to pray through music\u2026This summer our high school youth group here at Holy Cross, we went to Ohio for the Encounter Conference; it was really nice, with the Catholic Charismatic worship music. It was in Toledo. Encounter Ministries; they had their own Catholic band there. They were very nice; they have a playlist from the conference. It was amazing; it was very beautiful. They\u2019re very focused on the movement of the Holy Spirit, learning so much about the gifts of the Holy Spirit\u2026I try to receive the Holy Eucharist as much as possible; at Fordham, we have daily Masses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for teens who may be drawn to anti-Christian content on social media, Nicole advises, \u201cDon\u2019t base your views on Christianity or on God based on people, especially on social media, there\u2019s so much misinformation, so many lies. Take the time to look into it yourself. Look into what the religion stands for, and its origin in the Bible, and Church documents. And look at who God is, not who people are. Because sometimes people, they won\u2019t reflect who God is because they\u2019re imperfect and they fail. But get to the source of it and see what it really is about, definitely find your community in Church.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nicole was four years old when her family emigrated to the Bronx from the Dominican Republic; she has an older sister, Laura, age 20 now. Laura is wheelchair bound, born with cerebral palsy; she is a mostly online student of Mercy University (Bronx campus). The family has been with Holy Cross since arriving in the Bronx.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Words from the pastor\u00a0<\/p>\n

Father John Higgins, pastor at Holy Cross, said, \u201cI marvel how Nicole, as the younger sister, would help her (Laura)\u2026Nicole is always very friendly. She felt a desire and a calling to become a catechist; so she started helping out in our catechetical program. She has a great rapport with the kids\u2026The kids really appreciate her.\u201d He said the same is true now with teens in the youth group, they too appreciate Nicole\u2019s dedicated volunteer work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mission of our Youth Ministry is to help high school students encounter Christ, and once they know him, to love him and follow him,\u201d Father Higgins asserted. \u201cWe\u2019re blessed to have a retreat house on our premises. Young people at prayer; we pray with and for each other\u2026And sometimes we just have a gym night, when everyone could just hang out in the gym.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The high school Youth Ministry at Holy Cross Church meets on Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. Typically, 30 to 35 teens attend each week. Coordinators and members are busy planning for holiday social gatherings and later will be planning for the group\u2019s annual spring retreat in May. Holy Cross Church is located at 600 Soundview Avenue, the Bronx.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The contemporary Christian song that was the object of Nicole\u2019s high school junior classroom reflection assignment was a song called \u201cOceans.\u201d These lyrics in particular touched her:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSpirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters. Wherever you would call me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander. And my faith will be made stronger. In the presence of my Saviour.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicole Duarte, 18, is a dedicated volunteer with the Youth Ministry at Holy Cross Church in the Soundview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[5555,128,17113,17114,17115,9,24,63,2466,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-27193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-archdiocese-of-new-york","9":"tag-bronx","10":"tag-holy-cross","11":"tag-holy-cross-church","12":"tag-holy-cross-parish","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-soundview","17":"tag-the-bronx","18":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","19":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}