Bishop's Welcome Back Pentecost Project

Dear Priests and Lay Leaders,

Here's the information for the Bishop's Welcome Back Pentecost Project to welcome back our people.

On behalf of Bishop Boyea, we would like to help you welcome our brothers and sisters back to the church through a diocesan-wide “Welcome back Pentecost Project” – to call back the "lost sheep" from among your flock and, indeed, to actively seek them out.

With this in mind, Bishop would like to gift a blessed candle and prayer card to each family in our diocese upon the Solemnity of Pentecost, the official date of the expiration of the general dispensation.

The card contains eight prayer intentions which can be used as an octave of prayer along with the candle which, as it happens, burns for eight hours. It also has a personal message from the Bishop, encouraging our dear people to return to the practice of Sunday Mass attendance. 

The first box of candles, along with a brief project description will be available, for all pastors to collect after our Chrism Mass on Thursday, April 1. The remaining candles will then be delivered to your parishes by the diocesan staff. 

What to do with any – or many – remaining candles?

Can we suggest that we ask our families who are at Sunday Mass to take a candle to their Catholic neighbors who are not at Sunday Mass in order to let them know that we love them, that we are praying for them, and that we would like to bring their prayer intentions back to the parish family? We have also developed some suggested distribution scenarios for your consideration (see resources to the right).

Bishop thanks you ahead of time for working together as a diocesan family to pray as one family, seek out the lost, and work to bring God’s sons and daughters back to the fold.  

We are praying for you. Thank you for taking part in this with us as a diocesan family!


Creative Ideas Shared by Our Parish Captains

  • Many parishes are utilizing their existing lay ministry teams/volunteers to help reach out to families who have not returned to Mass to collect their blessed candle and prayer card. Groups you could consider involving: We Care Ministry, Homebound Ministry, Parish Council.

  • Another parish is using Pentecost, the birthday of our church, to throw a birthday party celebration. Not only will they be giving out Bishop's gift of the blessed candle to their families that day, but the church will be decorated and cake will be served after masses.

  • Set up a display of remaining candles in a prominent area within your church where you can invite people your to spend time together in front of this display to pray for each family that has not returned or is unable to return to Mass yet.  

  • When our church bells ring on Pentecost, another parish has decided to enhance their community sign of welcoming people back into Mass by extending the ringing of their church bells.

  • To help spread the word more widely, another parish has created yard signs to post outdoors and share with other families within their community to put in their front yards. Yet another parish has created a 9ft by 6ft sign that says "St. Mary on the Lake Parish Welcomes You!" that will stay up from Pentecost week-end on.

  • It was suggested that parishes could plan to place a candle in the staff office so that when the staff pray together each day they’ll pray for their parishioners and their return; the same could be done in parish school offices.

Our heartfelt thanks to all of our Parish Captains for embracing this initiative in your parishes and for helping to welcome our families back to Holy Mass.

(If you have other creative ideas you would like to share, please pass a brief description along to colsen@dioceseoflansing.org)

How to Properly Dispose of Blessed Candles

Catholics are instructed to dispose of unused blessed candles in a way that shows due reverence.

All blessed candles can be either burned or buried in order to properly dispose of them. This type of disposal honors their sacred purpose and returns them to the earth in a dignified way. If a person is unable to do either, the blessed candle may be dropped off at the parish office and someone on staff can take care of it.