A jubilee pilgrimage of hope through Our Lady of Hope Cemetery

320-acre Brownstown Township cemetery offers pilgrims unique opportunity to pray with and for those who have gone before us

The Archdiocese of Detroit has designated 12 local pilgrimage sites for Catholics to visit during the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. Each month during 2025, Detroit Catholic will highlight one of these sites to encourage Catholics to take advantage of the extraordinary graces offered during the jubilee.

BROWNSTOWN TOWNSHIP — During the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, Catholics are invited to visit one of 12 designated pilgrimage sites in the Archdiocese of Detroit, where special graces, indulgences and opportunities for prayer are available for the faithful properly disposed.

While most of the sites — which have been profiled each month by Detroit Catholic — are churches or shrines, two of the sites are cemeteries, places of peaceful rest for loved ones who have gone before us and continue to walk with us in faith.

Our Lady of Hope Cemetery, located on 320 acres in Brownstown Township, is one of the two cemeteries designated as special places of prayer and pilgrimage during the jubilee year.

Being named a pilgrimage site for pilgrims who cannot physically go to Rome is “a beautiful responsibility,” said Veronica North, Hispanic outreach manager for Catholic Funeral and Cemetery Services, which operates several Catholic cemeteries in the Archdiocese of Detroit, including Our Lady of Hope.

“It’s really, really good to help people grow close to the Jubilee,” North said. “And also, because it's Our Lady of Hope in the Jubilee of Hope — (being named a pilgrimage site) was just a natural, very joyful moment and we could see all the things we can do.

“People can relate the Jubilee of Hope with Our Lady of Hope, and also with hope in the resurrection — the hope that that our church needs," North added. “We need to be people of hope and people of happiness and joyfulness.”

Our Lady of Hope Cemetery was founded in 1962 by Fr. Robert F. Allen, then-director of Catholic cemeteries for the Archdiocese of Detroit. Sixty acres of the cemetery have been developed for burials, and to date, 26,400 people have been laid to rest at Our Lady of Hope.

The cemetery's expansive grounds include many symbols of the Christian faith, including statues and shrines dedicated to several saints, including Our Lady of Hope, St. Frances Cabrini, St. Joseph and others.

While at other pilgrimage sites, visitors can attend daily confession and Mass and experience the full communion of the Church with parishioners, at the cemetery, pilgrims can uniquely experience the communion of saints by praying with and being among the deceased, North explained.

“(Here), we are surrounded by loved ones,” North said. “It’s a very different sense of community than when you go to a parish and pray together with the focus on the tabernacle. Here, we do not have a tabernacle. But, here, it is again that community — that communion of the saints — that gives a lot of hope, that brings families together.”

At the heart of the cemetery campus is the St. John Paul II Mausoleum, which was dedicated in 2016 to the pope and saint who ushered the Church into the new millennium during the Great Jubilee in 2000.

Mass is offered on the third Friday of each month, as well as special holy days such as the Solemnity of All Souls, Nov. 2.