March 18 Archbishop to mark start of Holy Week with Palm Sunday service at Cathedral

Catholics from across the Archdiocese of Detroit will be at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament for an 11 a.m. Palm Sunday Mass on March 20. The beginning of the services involves an outdoor blessing of palms and procession into the Cathedral. Archbishop Allen Vigneron will celebrate the liturgy. Youths and young adults from throughout the six-county archdiocese are invited each year to the Mass. The Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament is at 9844 Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week – the year’s most solemn remembrances of Christ’s death on the cross and Resurrection from the Dead – for Catholics and many other Christian denominations. On Palm Sunday, Christians remember Jesus’ celebrated entry into Jerusalem prior to his arrest.

“The fullness of this week’s events — the entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the Institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, Jesus’ Passion and death on Good Friday, and the quiet silence of Holy Saturday — has to be seen in light of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday,” said Archbishop Vigneron in his Holy Week message, featured in today’s edition of The Michigan Catholic newspaper. “We have been made to see God. Jesus has filled the aching desire of every human heart to know where we come from and where we are going. It is only in Jesus — risen from the dead, never to die again — that our lives find their ultimate meaning.”

Note to reporters, editors & assignment desks: You are invited to cover this service. If you have any inquiries or would like to arrange an interview, please call Joe Kohn in the Public Relations Office at 313-237-5802. Arrangements for photographers and videographers will be made, and a mult box is available for audio. Please note that we ask you not to use flashes and other forms of artificial lighting during services inside the Cathedral, and we thank you in advance for heeding instructions from ushers and archdiocesan personnel.

Additionally, video clips, audio recordings and still photos will be available at this link for your use immediately following the service.