As Palm Sunday ceremonies kick off the start of Holy Week, the coronavirus pandemic has forced religious institutions and worshippers to scale back to practice social distancing and heed orders that prohibit large gatherings.

Normally, thousands of people congregate in the Vatican to observe Palm Sunday in an outdoor Mass. Pope Francis instead held Mass Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica in front of his aides, a few invited prelates, nuns and laypeople. Each commanded his or her own pew, and they sat far apart to follow social distancing directives aimed at minimizing the risk of spreading the virus. A male choir sang hymns but also practiced social distancing.

“The tragedy we are experiencing summons us to take seriously the things that are serious and not to be caught up in those that matter less, to rediscover that life is of no use if not used to serve others,” Francis said in his homily.

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Palm Sunday is the first service of Holy Week, which concludes with Easter on April 12. This year, without any public observers and in St. Peter’s Square, Francis will preside over the Good Friday Way of the Cross procession, which is typically a candlelit ceremony held at Rome’s Colosseum.

In Jerusalem, thousands of pilgrims typically participate in a Palm Sunday march, but this year, it was limited to a small group of Franciscan monks and Roman Catholic faithful. The clerics threw olive branches to onlookers perched on their balconies in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter in the Old City. Customarily, worshippers carry palm fronds and olive branches – which represent hope – from the top of the Mount of Olives and march into Jerusalem.

At the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa held a service closed to the public.

There are seven confirmed coronavirus cases in Vatican City and more than 8,000 in Israel, where there have been 48 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard.

In the USA, first lady Melania Trump canceled the White House Easter Egg Roll this year “out of an abundance of caution.” Many churches have quickly shifted their operations to accommodate online streaming of services. Many children could go without dyeing Easter eggs. Prices skyrocketed because of panic buying, leading the Department of Agriculture to say egg “offerings are very limited and insufficient to meet the current level of need.”

Contributing: The Associated Press