Over shrimp dumplings, curry beef stew, and milk tea, Bielka Gonzalez found a path back to the Catholic faith. At the time, she was in Cherry Hill’s Bao Mama with her former teacher, Chris Lim, and his wife, Daniela, discussing marriage.
The 25-year-old expressed her admiration for the joyful unity her two friends had. At the same time, she knew she wanted the Sacrament of Marriage to be like theirs: in the Catholic Church.
“I want to have a Catholic wedding, but more,” she recalled telling them. “I don’t want to just get married in a Catholic Church to say I got married into a Catholic Church. I want to believe my faith and know it.”
To do that, she knew she needed to enter into full communion with the faith, and receive the Sacraments of Holy Eucharist and Confirmation. “I had just dipped my toes into the water, but I needed to go deeper.”
This Easter season, Gonzalez will make the plunge, receiving both sacraments at Saint Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Collingswood.
Calculating the Truth
Born in Brooklyn, the youngest of three children to Belkys and Quilvio Gonzalez, Gonzalez and her family moved to Camden when she was 2. They became parishioners of Saint Joan of Arc Church (now part of Sacred Heart Parish). At age 5, Gonzalez was baptized in her parents’ native Dominican Republic, at Saint Dominic Church in the Diocese of La Vega.
As the family moved from Camden to Pennsauken, and later Merchantville, though, the family’s emphasis on Sunday Mass fell away, and Gonzalez pulled away from the faith. It was at Camden’s LEAP Academy charter school where she became a student in Lim’s freshman and sophomore math classes. Years later as an accounting major at Rutgers University-Camden, Gonzalez had Lim as a teacher again, this time in calculus.
“I appreciated his wisdom and mentorship,” Gonzalez recalled of those times.
After Gonzalez graduated in 2020, she began her career at an accounting firm, and later started a publishing house focused on books, cinema and music. She stayed in touch with Lim, too, and also Daniela, his then-fiancée. The three would gather regularly, “getting into deep conversations about everything – the universe, food, books.”
During last summer’s dinner, a formula was calculated for Gonzalez to fully enter the Catholic Church. It didn’t hurt that Daniela Lim is director of religious education at Saint Teresa of Calcutta Parish.
“After that night, I knew this was right for me and that I needed to continue on the path,” she said. “They guided me to the truth.”
In September, Gonzalez began her Order of Christian Initiation of Adults classes at the parish, and she dedicatedly attends them still, every Sunday after the 11 a.m. liturgy.
“I’ve grown so much,” she said, particularly in the confirmation classes, where she is the oldest in a group that mainly includes teenagers. Despite this age difference, Gonzalez has found inspiration from her younger peers.
“We’re all able to speak about our own journeys to the faith and how we got to this moment. They’ve all built me up.”
For confirmation, she has taken the name Barbara, after the third century martyr and patroness of artillerymen. “Her strength, her sacrifice for the faith is what I want to emulate,” Gonzales said, noting the ever-present Saint Barbara medal around her neck. “She stood tall, in protecting what she believed in.”
Anchored in God
As she approaches her First Holy Communion on April 12, Divine Mercy Sunday, with Father Steven Bertonazzi, pastor, and the Sacrament of Confirmation on April 20 with Bishop Joseph Williams, Gonzalez hopes she can be an example for young adults on how to find a life anchored in the Lord.
The secular culture, she explained, particularly through social media, “tells youth what to say, feel and think, and it doesn’t allow space for the true love and light. That doesn’t resonate with me, or my heart. I know God is with me, walks with me and directs me.”
Through Chris and Daniela Lim, she has expanded her Catholic circle. Deep dinner conversations continue, as does a monthly book club with other Catholics she calls friends.
“When people have a belief in something higher than themselves, a space for humility is created,” she said. “We build each other up.”
Lim said he’s appreciated witnessing Gonzalez’s curiosity and desire to go deeper into the truth over the years, whether it was polynomials or transubstantiation.
“I’m honored to be her sponsor,” he said. “I hope when people hear her story and meet her, they see her passion for the Church, the energy and passion she’s bringing, and wonder, themselves, what gifts they have to offer to the Diocese of Camden.”
For Gonzalez, there’s never been a better time to wade into the waters of grace. “I’m just dipping my toes in now,” she said. “It all feels like another baptism.”
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