By Melissa Ilski, Executive Director, St. Carlo Acutis Early Learning Centers

October 12, 2026 – Feast of St. Carlo Acutis

Imagine a three-year-old who has just learned that the Good Shepherd knows each of His sheep by name. Her face lights up with this new discovery. She remains quiet for a moment and then asks whether He knows her name too. The answer she receives in that moment, and in a thousand moments like it, will shape how she understands God’s unconditional love for her and the meaning of His presence in her life.

That is why the St. Carlo Acutis Early Learning Centers exist.

“By the time a child arrives for First Communion preparation,” Bishop Frank J. Caggiano has said, “the habits of a little child are largely formed.” The earliest years of a child’s life are profoundly formative. They are years when children begin to discover who they are, whether they are loved, and how they belong in the world. They are also years when a child’s natural wonder and openness create extraordinary opportunities to encounter God. And often, through those very experiences, families begin to discover what place faith will hold in their daily lives.

For generations, the Church has formed children through our Catholic schools, and our preschool programs continue that work beautifully. But many families today need full-day, year-round care for their youngest children, and most of the options they find are secular. St. Carlo Acutis Early Learning Centers will meet those families where they are, in communities where Catholic early learning often does not exist. Our first Center will open at St. Lawrence Parish in Shelton in the fall of 2027, with more to follow.

Where Faith Takes Root

At the heart of our program is the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, an approach to religious formation developed in Rome in the 1950s by Sofia Cavalletti, a Scripture scholar, and Gianna Gobbi, a Montessori educator. Their insight was simple and profound. Young children already possess a deep capacity for relationship with God. Our task is not simply to fill them with information, but to help them hear the voice of the Good Shepherd who is already calling them by name.

That work happens in a space called the atrium, a special room set apart for prayer and wonder. It is filled with child-sized materials, including small figures of the Good Shepherd and His flock, a miniature altar with a chalice and paten, and a map of the land where Jesus lived. A catechist proclaims a short passage of Scripture or presents a moment of the liturgy, and then steps back so the child can ponder and reflect. The child is learning to contemplate.

Central to the atrium for our youngest children is the parable of the Good Shepherd. Children come to know Jesus as the one who calls them by name, who never loses one of His own, and who gathers His sheep around His table. From there they discover the Eucharist, Baptism, the birth of Jesus, and the parables of the Kingdom, like the tiny mustard seed that grows into a great tree.

The child is formed not simply through memorized lessons, but through a relationship that is nurtured and lived. Children learn prayer by speaking to God in their own words. They discover that the Mass belongs to them, too. In a world that so often hurries children toward the next milestone, the atrium gives them something precious. Silence, beauty, wonder, and time.

Why a Young Saint

It is fitting that a ministry for the very young bears the name of a saint who died at fifteen.

St. Carlo Acutis, canonized in 2025 as the first saint of the millennial generation, asked as a small boy to receive his First Communion early, and from then on went to Mass every day he could. He called the Eucharist his “highway to Heaven.” His mother, Antonia Salzano, has often shared that it was her son’s faith that drew her back to the Church.

St. Carlo Acutis reminds us that children are not merely recipients of faith. They can also lead their families toward God. When a three-year-old comes home and asks to pray before dinner or points out the Good Shepherd in a church window, parents notice. Faith begins to move through the household.

This is something I believe deeply. When we welcome a three-year-old, we welcome a whole family. Through the faith and wonder of a young child, we have an extraordinary opportunity to touch the lives of parents, grandparents, and entire families, inviting them into a deeper relationship with Christ and the life of the Church.

St. Carlo Acutis also loved the ordinary things of childhood: friends, animals, games, and computers. He showed us that holiness is not reserved for a select few, nor is it separate from everyday life. It is found in how we live, how we love, and how we use the gifts God has given us.

“Everyone is born as an original, but many people end up dying as photocopies,” he said.

We want every child entrusted to our care to know that they are wonderfully and uniquely created by God. We want to nurture their natural wonder, honor the gifts they bring into the world, and help them discover all that God has planned for them.

And perhaps, just as St. Carlo did, these little ones will remind the rest of us what it means to live with faith, wonder, and joy.

St. Carlo Acutis Early Learning Centers Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus, lead the way
In all I do, in work and play.

Give me faith and wonder too,
Fill my heart with joy in You!

Mother Mary, hear my prayer,
Hold me close and keep me there.

Angel of God, stay by my side,
Keep me safe and be my guide.

Dear St. Carlo, help me see
All that God has planned for me.

Amen.