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"Children learn differently than adults," said Melissa Weise, a catechist for the "older sacraments program" at St. Edward the Confessor parish in Clifton Park.

The program is specifically geared toward youths from kindergarten to high school who missed receiving sacraments at a typical age.

Many parents who didn't have their children baptized in infancy are sometimes "a little embarrassed or concerned," said Rose Savallo, sacramental coordinator at St. Edward's. "When they come here, we have this program that answers their prayers."

If not for the program, the young Catholics would have to wait until they are old enough to participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, the process through which adults raised in another faith or without participation in a faith community join the Catholic Church.

Ms. Savallo said the program means students still get a chance to receive the sacraments before adulthood. Logan O'Neil, a freshman at West Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, participated in the program to make his First Communion about three years ago.

Fellow students "were in it for all different reasons," he said. "Other people were there to be baptized."

At the time Logan would normally have made his First Communion, his family had "so much going on" that "it sort of got pushed to the background. By the time we remembered, I was at the age I was. It was a little late, but we wanted to get it done."

All the students working toward sacraments at a later age participate in the program together. "Normally, when we present this to the parents, they get worried because of the age difference," Ms. Weise said, but older students learn by helping younger ones.

"One child will turn to another and ask for help," she explained - and the children create a kind of familial bond. At the Easter vigil Mass each year, when some students are baptized, the others stand around the font; the children also stand up while their peers from the program are receiving their First Communion.

"It's a 'congratulations,' a 'we're here with you' kind of thing," said Ms. Weise.

For Logan, the older sacraments program "was sort of taking that next step forward. It was a little late, but I was still making that step."

(For more information, call 518-371-7372.)[[In-content Ad]]

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