Everyone knows someone who is sick or someone who cares for them.  I am not talking simply about someone with a cold or a stomach virus or a migraine. I mean someone who is really sick and whose life is profoundly affected by a physical or mental condition that prevents them from living a normal, active life. 

Their sickness might be temporary and curable or, in other more serious cases, their infirmity might be progressive, enduring or permanent.  Sometimes, the symptoms of their condition or disease might be evident or visible.  Other times, their sickness might be hidden or known only to those closest to them. 

With sickness often comes suffering, either manageable or unbearable.  Those who care for the sick, whether family, friends or medical professionals, often cannot help but feel and share their pain.  Everyone involved, the sick as well as those accompanying them, wish and pray for healing.

In that spirit, Blessed Pope John Paul II established an annual “World Day of the Sick” in 1992.  Himself diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease the year before, the late Holy Father chose February 11 as the annual date, to begin in 1993, commemorating the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes whose 1858 apparition there became the focus of pilgrimages and many reports of miraculous cures.

In his message initiating this yearly day of prayer, Blessed Pope John Paul II explained that the day was intended to be “a special time of prayer and sharing, of offering one’s suffering for the good of the Church and of reminding everyone to see in his/her sick brother or sister the face of Christ who, by suffering, dying and rising achieved the salvation of mankind (“Letter Instituting World Day of the Sick,” May 13, 1992, n. 3).” 

“Your sufferings,” he continued, “accepted and borne with unshakable faith, when joined to those of Christ take on extraordinary value for the life of the Church and the good of humanity.”

In his own “Message for World Day of the Sick” this year, Pope Francis wrote to the sick that “the Church sees in you, dear sick people, the special presence of the suffering Christ” and he encouraged them to face each adversity with him and united to him.  The Holy Father asked those who approach the sick and in need to do so “with care and tenderness.”

The Diocese of Trenton joins Pope Francis and Catholics throughout the world on Tuesday, February 11, 2014, in sincere and heartfelt prayer for all those afflicted with sickness and disease at home, in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice care facilities.  That prayer likewise extends to those who accompany and companion those suffering in mind and body.  May our prayerful concern bring comfort to those who are sick and strength to those who serve them. Jesus, Divine Physician, touch and embrace the sick and suffering with your tender love, as you did so often in the Gospels.  Lead them through their crosses to your own Cross, where you redeemed the world.  May your Blessed Mother, who stood near you on that Cross, give them her maternal care and love.  Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for them, pray for us.