With a month to go until World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis recently turned his attention to that subject.

“Sick people are at the center of God’s people, and the Church advances together with them as a sign of a humanity in which everyone is precious and no one should be discarded or left behind,” he said in a tweet.

World Day of the Sick is Feb. 11, and 2023 will be the 31st celebration of the day. It was established by Pope John Paul II in 1992, not long after he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, as a way to encourage believers to pray for those suffering from illnesses, as well as their caretakers, National Today reports.

World Day of the Sick was set aside on Feb. 11 to coincide with the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Catholic Health Association of BC reports. On Feb. 11, 1858, a girl named Bernadette Soubirous said she started seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary around Lourdes, France. It is said that many pilgrims and visitors have experienced healing at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes since then. The Catholic Church declared Bernadette a saint a few years later.

"When we go on a journey with others, it is not unusual for someone to feel sick, to have to stop because of fatigue or of some mishap along the way,” Pope Francis said in his message.

“It is precisely in such moments that we see how we are walking together: whether we are truly companions on the journey, or merely individuals on the same path, looking after our own interests and leaving others to ‘make do,’” he continued.

As the Church continues progressing along the synodal path, Pope Francis said, “I invite all of us to reflect on the fact that it is especially through the experience of vulnerability and illness that we can learn to walk together according to the style of God, which is closeness, compassion, and tenderness.”

As it coincides with the Lourdes celebration, he called on people to turn their thoughts to the Shrine of Lourdes ahead of Feb. 11.

“It is not only what functions well or those who are productive that matter,” he said.