March 16 is Palm Sunday and the first day of Holy Week. This is the most important week of the liturgical year, leading up to the most important day of the year. Rome and Jerusalem are two focal points of Holy Week activities.

Pope2008.com is the Register’s papal blog. Follow papl events here.

Palm Sunday

9:30 a.m., St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI blesses palms, followed by the papal procession and Mass.

Holy Thursday

9:30 a.m., St. Peter’s Basilica, papal Chrism Mass

5:30 p.m., St. John Lateran, papal Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Good Friday

5 p.m., St. Peter’s Basilica, papal Celebration of the Lord’s Passion

9:15 p.m., Colosseum, papal Way of the Cross

Palm Sunday

6:30 a.m., Holy Sepulcher: procession with palms and Pontifical Mass.

Holy Thursday

8:30 p.m., Gethsemane: holy hour in the Basilica of the Agony

Good Friday

10.30 a.m., Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross)

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Lent officially ends as Holy Thursday Mass begins, and so does the Register’s work week.

For years, we have officially closed the office for Good Friday and Easter Monday, allowing families to celebrate the Triduum together — including our own.

Many families have different customs for Holy Week. The Register’s website offers some common activities. Click on “Resources” then “Holy Week Guide.”

Also in the resources section, see our Passion Stations of the Cross. They are a great way to use the movie The Passion of the Christ as a spiritual aid.

Each Good Friday, the Hoopes family watches the classic Charlton Heston version of Ben Hur. It is an exciting adventure epic whose main story line and various subplots touch on issues of family estrangement, sickness, betrayal, political oppression, religious seeking, suffering, hard work, kindness and freedom. All these strands reach their resolution in the passion of Christ. It thus teaches a great lesson about how Christ’s redemptive act touched all aspects of our lives.

The movie’s portrayal of Christ is refreshing: By never showing his face, the movie gives our own experience of Jesus pride of place.

Solemn Entrance: Matthew 21:1-11

Mass: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24; Philippians 2:6-11 Matthew 26:14-27:66 or 27:11-54

EPriest.com offers free homily packs for priests.

Palm Sunday is like a mini-Holy Week. None of the other Holy Week Masses is obligatory for Catholics, so the Church provides Catholics with all they need to commemorate the days of Christ’s passion and death in the Sunday liturgies.

Palm Sunday begins with the triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, when (like on Holy Thursday), Jesus has some time to be with friends who recognize his importance — friends who will nonetheless largely abandon him. After that is the reading of the Passion, which is a look ahead to Good Friday.

The great themes of mankind’s longing are all addressed this week in the most intense way imaginable.

First, there is freedom: The freedom that we abused in order to sin is redeemed by the freedom to do the Father’s will that Jesus exercises when he says, “Let this cup pass from me, but not my will but yours be done.”

Second, there is suffering and happiness: We are accustomed to looking for happiness in the pleasures we find in this world and seeing suffering as the negation of our happiness. True happiness can only come from the peace and fulfillment God gives. Christ’s passion shows us that even suffering can be a path to this true happiness.

Third, there is death and eternal life. Death is the ignominious end of all mankind. But when Jesus, who is God and man, suffers it, he transforms it into a passage to eternal life.

And the greatest thing about this week is that all these lessons come silently and powerfully, whether you articulate them or not. You need only attend whatever liturgies of the Church you can this week, and listen.

The Hoopeses are editorial directors of Faith & Family magazine (faithandfamilymag.com).