5 Ways to Celebrate Graduations at Your Catholic Parish

Graduation season is upon us and churches everywhere will soon be celebrating their members’ graduations from all sorts of programs for children and adults, alike. We’ve collected some of the most common graduation traditions you might find in a Catholic setting and paired them with ideas on how you can support those events with assets from WeCreate, our Catholic library of ready-to-use content ! Dive right in to see how your parish can congratulate your graduates in a special way this year.

Baccalaureate Mass – Often held specifically for graduating high school and college students, these celebrations are popular everywhere! Advertise your Baccalaureate Mass in your church bulletin, social media, website, and through printed invitations with our graduation celebration graphics in WeCreate. Don’t forget to add these graphics to a slide or two if your church uses screens with imagery inside of your sanctuary during Mass. 

Graduation Retreats – Churches with high school youth ministry programs as well as those with college outreaches attached, like Newman Centers, will often have a graduation retreat for their soon to be graduated seniors. As you are building your content for the retreat, be sure to check out the “Quotes” section in WeCreate for some inspiration and images to distribute. In the “Reflections” section there is also material available for graduates .

Ministry Moving-Up Ceremonies – Many youth programs hold a “Moving Up Ceremony” or a “Graduation Ceremony” to celebrate every grade level moving up into the next grade for the following year’s program. Some don’t celebrate each individual grade moving up but do throw a party for 8th graders who will be moving up into the high school youth group the next year. Use one of our generic colorful or festival-themed templates to make a flyer or graphic for this yearly event to share with families who are invited!

Individual Gifts – If you want to do something special for your graduates, consider getting each person in your parish who is graduating from high school, or from college, a graduation gift. Some parishes create a gift bag for graduating high school students that includes items like a prayer candle, an informational handout about Catholic college events and groups near where the student is attending college, a cross or crucifix, a book of reflections, and other spiritual items. Don’t forget to include a card from the church youth ministry team or parish staff with these gifts! Use our graduation vectors and illustrations in WeCreate to create a customized card from your parish to make the gift even more special. 

Student Profiles - Some parishes celebrate high school graduates by creating and printing out a profile of the student. This little poster usually includes the graduate’s senior photo alongside their answers to a few interview questions and is posted in the church’s narthex or parish hall during graduation season to celebrate these youth. 

Interview questions often include queries like: 

• What are your plans after high school?
• If you are going to college, which one are you going to and what are you hoping to study?
• What are some of the extra-curricular sports, hobbies, and clubs you participated in during high school? 
• Have you achieved anything special in the last four years that you’d like to share?
• What advice do you have for the incoming high school freshmen at our church?

To enhance a student profile, be sure to check out the many graphic templates we have in WeCreate. If you like the look of one but it doesn’t say exactly what you need it to say, you’re in luck. You can simply click on it and when prompted, change the text in the template to fit whatever needs you have — saving yourself time and making your graduate profiles look lovely.

Do you have another special way that you celebrate graduation season in your parish? We’d love to hear about it! Tag us in a post on Facebook and let us know what your parish does for graduating seniors.