In his message for 11 February, World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis writes:

Illness is part of our human condition. Yet, if illness is experienced in isolation and abandonment, unaccompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhumane.

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. 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”. For this reason, on the thirty-first World Day of the Sick, as the whole Church journeys along the synodal path, 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.

In this spirit, let us pray together for the sick.

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight,
and give Your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend your sick ones, loving Lord. Rest your weary ones.
Bless your dying ones. Soothe your suffering ones. Pity your afflicted ones.
Shield your joyous ones.
Give strength and vigilant awareness for all your caregivers
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[Inspired by a prayer from Sister Mary Christa Kroening]