“Hope does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5), but strengthens us in times of trials” is the title of Pope Francis’ Message for the XXXIII World Day of the Sick, published today in the Bulletin of the Holy See.
World Day of the Sick is celebrated annually on 11 February, liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes. Every three years, the celebration takes a solemn form at a Marian Shrine. Due to the Jubilee Year 2025, the Holy Father Francis has ordered that the solemn celebration, which should take place this year, be held on 11 February 2026 at the Marian Shrine of the Virgen de Chapi, in Arequipa, Peru.
In 2025, the Church will celebrate World Day of the Sick in the ordinary form, at diocesan level, on 11 February: the Jubilee of the Sick and the World of Healthcare on 5 and 6 April; and the Jubilee of People with Disabilities on 28 and 29 April.
In this Jubilee Year, in which the Church invites us to become ‘pilgrims of hope’, to celebrate the Day dedicated to the sick, the Holy Father chooses a passage from St Paul's Letter to the Romans, in which the apostle infuses the Christian community of Rome with courage.
Hope, the central message of the Jubilee, gives substance to the Pope's invitation, and at the same time his wish, to all those who suffer and to those who care for the sick. A hope that - Francis observes - makes us steadfast in difficulties and offers nourishment to that virtue that is called fortitude and is - like hope - a gift from God.
This gift is one of the aspects through which God's presence is manifested in our lives. ‘More than anything else, suffering makes us aware that hope comes from the Lord, and it is thus, first and foremost, a gift to be received and cultivated, by remaining “faithful to the faithfulness of God” (cf. La esperanza è una luce nella notte, Vatican City 2024, Preface).’ It is also a gift to walk beside the Risen One, who fills that suffering with meaning, so that we too, like the disciples of Emmaus (cf. Luke 24:13-53) ‘we can share with him our anxieties, concerns and disappointments, and listen to his word, which enlightens us and warms our hearts. Like them too, we can recognise him present in the breaking of the bread”.
It is therefore clear how illness is first and foremost an occasion of encounter with Christ. ‘In the time of illness, in fact,’ writes Pope Francis, ‘if on the one hand we feel all our frailty as creatures - physical, psychological and spiritual - on the other hand we experience the closeness and compassion of God, who in Jesus shared our sufferings’ and so we discover that we can anchor ourselves to an unshakable rock and experience the consolation that comes from God.
But it is also an encounter with the other, with those who are sick, with those who heal and care. Here then, the places where people suffer - hospitals, nursing homes, families - also become ‘places of sharing, where we enrich one another. How many times,' the Holy Father observed, ’at the bedside of a sick person, one learns to hope! How many times, being close to those who suffer, one learns to believe! How often, when we care for those in need, do we discover love! We realize that we are “angels” of hope and messengers of God for one another, all of us together: weather patients, physicians, nurses, family members, friends, priests, men and women religious.
This walking together, Pope Francis concludes, ‘is a sign for everyone, “a hymn to human dignity, a song of hope’’’. A luminous testimony that substantiates the exhortation of this Jubilee: ‘Spes non confundit’, ‘hope does not disappoint’.