Pope on Our Lady of Lourdes Feast: The Church is Close to all who are Sick or Frail

Pope Francis speaks from the window of the Apostolic Palace on a rainy Sunday in Rome on Feb. 11, 2024. Vatican Media

The Catholic Church marks the World Day of the Sick each year on Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in southwestern France is associated with the sick because of the presence of a miraculous spring from which many people have obtained physical healing.

John Paul II established the World Day of the Sick in 1992 as “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 sick brother or sister the face of Christ who, by suffering, dying and rising, achieved the salvation of mankind.”

Pope Francis speaks from the window of the Apostolic Palace on a rainy Sunday in Rome on Feb. 11, 2024. Vatican Media

Reflecting on Sunday’s Gospel, Pope Francis said that Jesus’ healing of a leper in the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark is an example of “Jesus’ style” of backing up his words with “concrete deeds.”

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“Love needs tangibility. Love needs presence and encounter. It needs to be given time and space,” Pope Francis said.

The pope underlined that love cannot be reduced to “to beautiful words, images on a screen, momentary selfies, or hasty messages.”

He said that when people are sick, the first thing that they need — in addition to the attention of healthcare professionals — is the closeness of their loved ones.

“May Mary, solicitous in care, help us to be ready and tangible in love,” Francis said.

Pope Francis speaks from the window of the Apostolic Palace on a rainy Sunday in Rome on Feb. 11, 2024. Vatican Media

Pope Francis said that especially on the World Day of the Sick “we cannot remain silent about the fact that there are many people today to whom the right to care, and thus the right to life, is denied.”

“I am thinking of those who live in extreme poverty, but I am also thinking of those who live in war zones where fundamental human rights are violated there every day. It is intolerable,” he said.

“Let us pray for battered Ukraine, for Palestine and Israel. Let us pray for Myanmar and for all peoples who are tormented by war.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">????VIDEO | Pope Francis, at the Angelus, explained that &quot;[love] cannot be reduced to beautiful words, to images on a screen, momentary selfies, and hasty messages.&quot; And he asked us to think &quot;when was the last time I changed my plans to meet the needs of someone who asked me for… <a href="https://t.co/yeGqVykcfF">pic.twitter.com/yeGqVykcfF</a></p>&mdash; EWTN Vatican (@EWTNVatican) <a href="

🎥VIDEO | Pope Francis, at the Angelus, explained that "[love] cannot be reduced to beautiful words, to images on a screen, momentary selfies, and hasty messages." And he asked us to think "when was the last time I changed my plans to meet the needs of someone who asked me for… pic.twitter.com/yeGqVykcfF

— EWTN Vatican (@EWTNVatican) February 11, 2024

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Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.