The 27th World Day of the Sick of the Catholic Church is being celebrated on Monday in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), the capital of West Bengal state. The annual day was instituted by St. John Paul II on 13 May 1992, designating its celebration to the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11 each year. The purpose is to draw attention to the sick and their caregivers and the redemptive nature of human suffering. His Holiness Pope Francis on Dec. 11 appointed Bangladeshi Cardinal His Eminence Patrick D’Rozario as his envoy to the 2019 World Day of the Sick in Kolkata, which has as its theme, “You received without payment; give without payment” (Mt 10:8).
As reported by Vatican news, His Eminence Cardinal D’Rozario says Kolkata, the “City of Joy” will celebrate the joy of communion with the sick people together with St. Teresa of Calcutta who is the “icon of God’s compassion, love, generosity and service” to the poor and the infirm. The cardinal is longing to experience this communion together with Mother Teresa. The 75-year old cardinal points out that what Mother Teresa was to Kolkata, and still is today, reflects what Jesus was to the Galilee and to the people of His time. Whatever was happening in Galilee was spreading all over the world at the time of Jesus. In the same way Kolkata, the “Galilee of modern times”, is spreading the same message of Jesus.
His Eminence Cardinal D’Rozario says the Feb. 9-11 World Day of the Sick will include reflections, prayers and communicating with others and showing mercy and compassion to the poor and the neediest. Among those addressing the World Day of the Sick is His Eminence Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. The 3 days include programmes such as reflections, discussions, visits to homes for the sick treating, anointing of the sick. It will culminate with a solemn Holy Mass with the anointing of the sick at Bandel Church, the popular Marian shrine dedicated to the Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, some 55 km north of Kolkata. This is the second time that the international celebration of the World Day of the Sick is taking place in India. The first was in Velankanni, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, in 2003.
