The town of Nazareth, where the Bible says Jesus spent his childhood, will host the Roman Catholic World Day of the Sick on Thursday.
The event will include a series of liturgical celebrations across Israel, according to Fides News Agency, such as the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
The annual celebration will also include a symposium, hosted by the Notre Dame de Jerusalem Centre today. There will be a progamme focussing on the care of the terminally ill and ethical issues surrounding the end of life.
Pope Francis announced Nazareth as the location for this year's World Day of the Sick in September 2015.
He said: "Illness, above all grave illness, always places human existence in crisis and brings with it questions that dig deep. Our first response may at times be one of rebellion: Why has this happened to me? We can feel desperate, thinking that all is lost, that things no longer have meaning."
While these can be testing times, there is also opportunity for hope, Francis added. "Not because faith makes illness, pain, or the questions which they raise, disappear, but because it offers a key by which we can discover the deepest meaning of what we are experiencing; a key that helps us to see how illness can be the way to draw nearer to Jesus who walks at our side, weighed down by the Cross."
All religious men and women are invited to partake in the celebrations, and those who are themselves sick are particularly encouraged, according to a statement by the Ordinary Catholic Bishops.
The Gospel of Luke chapter 4 says Jesus was brought up in the town of Nazareth.
