A Mass honoring the Martyrs of Vietnam will be celebrated Sunday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, seven days before their feast day.

The 4 p.m. Mass will be preceded at 3:30 p.m. by a procession, a veneration ritual and a liturgical Vietnamese dance inside the cathedral. An exhibit about the history of the Martyrs of Vietnam will be on display on the cathedral’s plaza, during and after the Mass.

The Mass will be streamed live on the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lacatholics/.

The Martyrs of Vietnam were among thousands killed between the 16th and 19th centuries for refusing to denounce the Catholic faith. They included priests, religious and lay people, both Asian and Europeans, though most were native Vietnamese.

According to the Vatican, there were between 130,000 and 300,000 Vietnamese martyrs. St. John Paul II decided to canonize those whose names are known and unknown, giving them a single feast day, Nov. 24.

“The purpose of the celebration is three-fold — to honor our Catholic predecessors, who sacrificed their lives for their faith, to remind us about the importance of having strong faith in God and to preserve the Vietnamese culture,” said Ryan Bui Lui, president of the archdiocese’s Vietnamese Catholic Community.

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