Right after the Prayers of the Faithful/General Intercessions, the lector at each of the masses held at the parishes of the Blue Hills Collaborative informs the parishioners present that either “there is only one collection today,” or specifies with a title only what the money collected during the second collection will be used for. For those who get envelopes, this is usually not a surprise, but for the others this is new information.

For those who would like a little more notice regarding when a particular collection is happening, or for those who would like to learn a little bit more about how their money will be used, we’ve created this page to explain it all.

In general, only the first collection goes to the benefit of any given parish. Here at the Catholic Parishes of the Blue Hills, we have a monthly “Energy Collection” which takes place on the weekend of the second Sunday of the month. This collection is retained by each parish that receives it and it is used specifically to pay for utilities incurred monthly by each of our facilities. 

All other second collections are specified by the Archdiocese, with many of them being specified by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB). In some cases, the parishes of the Blue Hills Collaborative take up these collections on a different date. Here is a list, calendar, and description of each second collection that takes place during the year.

June

Energy Collection: June 7-8, 2025

Seminary Offering: June 7-8, 2025

Promoting the Gospel: June 14 and 15, 2025
The Promoting the Gospel collection supports the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Catholic Communication Campaign. Through the work of the CCHD and the CCC, the Gospel is promoted by serving those in poverty, providing grants to community based groups and using the entire array of media tools available today to evangelize and promote Gospel values. For more information about these organizations, visit the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Catholic Communications Campaign website. 

Parish Landscaping: June 21 and 22, 2025

July

Energy Collection: July 12-13, 2025

St. Vincent de Paul: July 19 and 2020, 2025

August

Energy Collection: August 9-10, 2025

September

Energy Collection: September 13-14, 2025

October

Energy Collection: October 11-12, 2025

November

Energy Collection: November 8-9, 2025

December

Energy Collection: December 13-14, 2025

Christmas: Clergy Health & Retirement Trust: December 25 [ONLY collection]
Merry Christmas from all the priests of the Archdiocese of Boston! The Christmas Collection supports the retirement, medical and financial needs of priests of the Archdiocese of Boston. These priests have given their lives to faithfully serve Christ, the Church, and you. Please be generous to this important collection. For more information, please visit the Clergy Health & Retirement Trust website.

Other Collections

There are also collections for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but we choose not to hold collections on those days and instead make generous donations from our parish funds to the designated charities (Catholic Charities/Ash Wednesday & Holy Land Shrines/Good Friday) on behalf of our parishioners.

Online Giving

For those using Online Giving, each of these collections will appear as a choice eight days before the underlined date shown above; it will disappear 14 days after the underlined date shown. You will only have the choice to make a one-time donation, but monies designated to each fund will go to the cause shown. Please be sure to choose the correct parish when electing the second collection fund.