(Note: This story has been updated to show a new time for the event.)
Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, will deliver the invocation at a Jan. 19 memorial service at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to honor the nearly 400,000 U.S. residents who have succumbed to COVID-19.
The memorial service – held the day before the presidential inauguration – is scheduled to begin at 5:10 p.m. with the cardinal's prayer. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will participate in the event that will include prayer, music and a lighting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with 400 lights in honor of lives lost in the pandemic. This is believed to be the first-ever lighting around the reflecting pool of the Lincoln Memorial.
Along with the Lincoln Memorial, hundreds of towns, cities, tribes, landmarks, and communities across the United States will join in the tribute. Iconic buildings including the Empire State Building in New York City and the Space Needle in Seattle will be illuminated. Other locations participating in the memorial include Wilmington, Delaware; Oakland, California; Miami; Atlanta; Chicago; Dearborn, Michigan; Las Vegas; Philadelphia; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Charleston, South Carolina; Houston; tribal lands throughout the country; and others.
The program is scheduled to conclude at 5:35 p.m. with the lighting of the monoliths.
In addition to Cardinal Gregory and the incoming president and vice-president, participants at the Lincoln Memorial event will include Yolanda Adams, a Grammy Award-winning gospel singer who will sing “Hallelujah;” and Lori Marie Key, a nurse from Michigan who will sing “Amazing Grace.”
Tony Allen, chief executive officer of the Presidential Inaugural Committee said the event is an opportunity to “pay tribute to those we have lost — and their families — and (to) come together to unite our country, contain this virus, and rebuild our nation.”
No website link has been provided for the memorial service, but it is anticipated that television news networks will provide coverage.
