NEXT GENERATION

WINTER 2018–2019

BOLDER AND WISER

The Westchester County Center was vibrating with energy on October 20, 2018. The buzz was not about a basketball game or a professional wrestling match or a car show; it was the unmistakable electricity generated when 1,000 teenagers and youth ministers gather to pray, share joys and struggles and perform charity work.

We asked 14-year-old Naia Charland, a ninth grader and aspiring writer at Hunter College High School and a parishioner at St. Charles Borromeo in Harlem, to give us her take on the event.

WHEN I FIRST HEARD ABOUT NEW YORK CATHOLIC YOUTH DAY, which our youth ministers urged us to attend in preparation to be confirmed this upcoming year, I have to admit that I was less than thrilled. But the minute I walked into the Westchester County Center, I could tell the day would be nothing like what I had expected. In keeping with the theme of the event, “Be Bold,” there were many activities encouraging the youth in attendance to be unafraid and forthcoming about their faith. The program included two main sections for all the participants, a break for lunch, and a Mass at the end of the day celebrated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan. I enjoyed all of it.

During one of the sections, all the attendees took part in a service project. Working in shifts, we packed up more than 71,000 meals to be delivered to hungry people in the African nation of Burkina Faso. It felt unreal that the work we did in our three groups for just an hour each would be able to feed that many. It was truly inspiring.

The other section consisted of separate workshops for the young men and women about how to be bold in our faith. The girls were directed to a theater upstairs, where a beautiful woman named Vanesa Zuleta talked to us about finding God in her life, or rather how God found her during one of the hardest times in her life. I would have to say that her presentation is what resonated with me the most. I still haven’t stopped thinking about it.

I’m really glad that I attended New York Catholic Youth Day. The event definitely encouraged me to “be bold” about my faith and helped me understand that, when others were my age, they too struggled with finding God. I know now that I’m not alone.