The Register features a package of profound reflections delving into aspects of Christ’s passion and crucifixion, timed to coincide with Holy Week.

These meditations, combined with the ethereal artwork of Jacques Joseph “James” Tissot (1836-1902), can serve as a powerful resource, enhancing readers’ engagement with Jesus’ sacrificial offering of himself for the eternal salvation of every human soul that turns to him in faith and hope.

To further assist in this engagement with Our Lord and Savior’s passion and death, the Register would like to recommend five other practical suggestions faithful Catholics can also utilize to make their Holy Week as spiritually fruitful as possible.

1. Embrace the Church’s Liturgical Treasury.

The basic starting point for every Catholic should be to attend the Masses and other liturgies that are offered by our parishes each day throughout Holy Week. In particular, we should strive to attend each stage of the Triduum, which technically is one liturgy from Thursday to the Saturday Easter vigil. There’s no better way than this to enter the Paschal mystery.

2. Make the Holy Thursday Seven Churches Devotion.

Every year in the U.S. and around the world, groups of Catholics join together on Holy Thursday to undertake a “Seven Churches Visitation.” It’s a devotion that commenced during the 1500s in Rome under the tutelage of St. Philip Neri, who led an annual pilgrimage to each of Rome’s seven basilicas as a means to accompany Jesus during his passion. The tradition is similarly observed today in most major U.S. cities and in other places where sufficient numbers of churches are located closely enough together.

3. Travel the Good Friday Way of the Cross.

Praying the Stations of the Cross is highly recommended during every Friday in Lent, and for Catholic families this tremendously prayerful resource can become an even more powerful instrument through their participation in an outdoor Way of the Cross on Good Friday. Doing so tangibly unites us to the physical and spiritual torments Our Lord suffered on our behalf throughout his final journey to his cross at Calvary.

4. Don’t Overlook Holy Saturday.

Between the cross and the empty tomb, the critical significance of the day in between, when Jesus descended into hell, can sometimes be overlooked. Sometimes referred to as the day of the “Harrowing of Hell,” it’s a day when, ahead of the Easter vigil, we should strive to keep silent and maintain our penitential fasts, even as we prepare food for the upcoming feasts of the next day.

The Office of Readings for the day is particularly recommended for prayer and reflection at this time.

And we can draw additional inspiration from the evangelical witness of Pope St. John Paul II, who passed from this life 20 years ago on Holy Saturday in 2005.

5. Turn to Mary.

As in every other area of our devotional life, there’s no better instrument for living out our Holy Week observances than to unite ourselves in Marian prayer with Jesus’ own mother — whose maternal heart suffered agonizingly alongside him on the day of his death.

Mother Mary Angelica, foundress of EWTN, has blessed us with a beautiful prayer to Mary for this specific purpose.

“Grant that my heart, like yours, may be pierced through by the sight of his sorrow and the misery and that I may determine never to offend him again. What a price he paid to cover my sins, to open the gates of heaven for me and to fill my soul with his own Spirit,” Mother Angelica’s prayer concludes. “Sweet Mother, let us travel this way together, and grant that the love in my poor heart may give you some slight consolation. Amen.”