BRAINTREE -- "Oh my gosh, this is three wonderful things to celebrate in one day."

That was what Liz Cotrupi, director of the Archdiocese of Boston's Office of Family Life and Ecclesial Movements, thought about Matt Maher and Sarah Kroger's Advent worship concert at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Dec. 8. The date of the concert happened to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the cathedral's dedication, and the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

"It was like a little slice of heaven," Cotrupi said.

The concert was part of Maher and Kroger's 11-stop Cathedrals Tour for Advent 2025. Maher is an internationally known Catholic praise and worship singer-songwriter who played for Pope Francis at World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro. Kroger, who also writes her own songs, played for a crowd of 50,000 at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in 2024. Over 1,200 people, including Archbishop Richard G. Henning, filled the cathedral for music and adoration. According to Cotrupi, the archbishop told her he enjoyed the evening. The concert was free admission thanks to the support of Boston Catholic Development Services.

"It was a great opportunity to bring people together from all over the archdiocese," Cotrupi said, as well as from surrounding states.

"There are a lot of Matt Maher and Sarah Kroger fans in New England," Cotrupi said.

More importantly, the concert was a way "to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, and a time of fellowship."

"It was amazing to see so many beautiful faces," she said. "There were babies and senior citizens. It really spans the ages. And people were so full of warmth and good cheer."

Cotrupi and her staff were at the cathedral from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. setting up for the concert. Maher and Kroger provided their own lighting effects, which Cotrupi said left the people inside "blown away."

It "lit up the cathedral in ways you don't get to see the cathedral lit up," she said.

Kroger told the audience to think of the people who prayed, rejoiced, and grieved within the cathedral over the past 150 years. The Archdiocese of Boston's archivists were also in attendance to tout their recently released virtual tour of the cathedral. The annotated, panoramic cross-section of the church building, which is available on the archdiocese's website, details the history of everything, from the stained-glass windows to the chair Pope St. John Paul II sat on when he visited the cathedral in 1979.

"It's such a symbol of our faith in Boston," Cotrupi said of the cathedral. "Interacting with the amazing team over at the cathedral, not only is it their local parish for that particular neighborhood, but it's also the mother parish for the whole archdiocese. It's so steady, it's so beautiful, it's representative of our faith. It's built by the people."

She said "the people of God" have made the cathedral what it is today.

"You can't help but think 'Oh my goodness, what a gift,'" she said.