All children or 11th grade students- whether enrolled in a Catholic School or not should also participate in final sacramental preparation at Immaculate Conception Church if they are to receive the sacraments here.
Our usual everyday understanding is that the words “sign” and “symbol” are easily and often interchangeable. For example, if I ask: "Is a stop sign a sign?", most would answer yes. If I held it up and asked: "Is it a symbol?", most would say yes. A stop sign is a symbol used to remind someone of a law that says we must come to a complete stop at particular intersections. A stop sign is not the law. It causes nothing. It is the law givers and the drivers who do something- or not. The symbol of the Stop Sign doesn’t do anything on its own.
In our Church, signs and symbols have a different use and meaning. We have seven particular signs called Sacraments. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace (efficacious- able to effect something; having the power to produce a result)…by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites signify (are signs of) and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions." (CCC 1131)
So while the sign or symbol of the Stop Sign does nothing in its own right, Sacraments are signs that do something.