[참 기쁨을 알면 진리에 도달한 것이다] 2026년 가해 부활 제6주간 금요일, 전삼용 요셉 신부

Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter, Year 2026 – To Know True Joy Is to Reach the Truth "When a woman is in labor, she is in pain and distress. But when she has given birth, she remembers no more of the pain because of the joy that a man has been born into the world. In the same way, you are now in pain. But when I see you again, your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take that joy away from you." (John 16:21-22) In today's Gospel, Jesus tells a very primal yet powerful parable to His disciples, who are trembling in fear before His death on the cross. It is the labor pains of a woman giving birth. People of the world regard pain as the worst disease to be unconditionally avoided and eliminated. It is the weakness of modern man that he cannot endure even a single day without painkillers. However, a person of faith is not someone who blindly avoids pain. A person of faith is someone who knows exactly what this pain gives birth to, and what kind of life awaits at the end of those tearing labor pains. True joy does not come when pain vanishes, but is perfected the moment one hears the first cry of a new life pouring out through the pain. There is a great modern saint who proved this great paradox of conception with her whole being. This is the story of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician and mother of four who passed away in 1962. Two months into her fourth pregnancy, she received a shocking diagnosis that a massive tumor had formed in her uterus. Doctors recommended that she undergo an immediate hysterectomy or terminate the pregnancy and have surgery to save her life. That was the rational law of the world, designed to avoid pain and ensure survival. However, Gianna firmly refused. "Doctor, I cannot kill my baby to save my own life. I will bear my own pain; please, no matter what, save the life of my child." Throughout her pregnancy, the extreme labor pains caused by the growing tumor crushing her uterus tore at her body. Despite the excruciating pain, she prayed and eventually completed her full term, giving birth to a healthy and beautiful daughter, Gianna Emanuela. However, immediately after childbirth, septic peritonitis caused by infection struck, driving her to the brink of death. According to the testimony of her husband, Pietro Molla, who witnessed her final moments, she was in such miserable physical agony due to inflammation and high fever that she could not even properly hold the baby she had risked her life to save in her arms. Yet, at the moment of her death, there was not a single trace of regret or despair on her face. On the contrary, she ceaselessly whispered, "Jesus, I love you," and closed her eyes peacefully with a dazzling smile—one that no powerful person in the world could possess—filled with joy for the new life born into the world at the cost of her own life. (Source: Pietro Molla, *The Life of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla*) How could one smile so brilliantly amidst such terrible dying pain? This is because I tasted the 'joy of the birth of a new life,' which completely overwhelmed the pain of my body being shattered. Living creatures in the natural world are also designed to inevitably undergo pain in order to break down their old selves and be reborn as new life. Consider the 'Law of Lobster Growth' presented by Abraham Twerski, a renowned psychiatrist and rabbi. A lobster possesses tender, soft flesh, yet it is surrounded by a very hard shell. The problem is that while the lobster's flesh continues to grow, the shell never expands. As the lobster grows, the old shell begins to cruelly crush its body. Inside the shell, the lobster feels immense pressure and suffocating, extreme pain (labor pains). When this signal of excruciating pain arrives, the lobster undergoes the bloody agony of childbirth, burrowing under a rock to tear through the old shell that had protected it and escaping. The moment it sheds its shell, it becomes in its most vulnerable and vulnerable state; however, only by undergoing this painful process of tearing can it be born into a new, larger, and harder shell capable of embracing itself—that is, 'new life.' Lobsters grow into massive creatures by repeating these birthing pains throughout their lives. Dr. Twerski makes a pointed joke: "If lobsters had human wills, they would have been prescribed tranquilizers or painkillers whenever they felt pressure or pain. And as a price for avoiding that pain, they would have died trapped forever inside their old shells." It is akin to humans hiding behind the world's anesthetics to avoid the pains of the cross. Pain is not a disease that destroys us, but a sacred signal announcing that it is time for our souls to tear through the shell of the old self and be born as 'new life'—children of God. (Source: Abraham Twerski, *Growing Each Day*) Then, how do the memories of the injustice and wounds we endure while loving and forgiving our neighbors transform into joy? Neuroscience perfectly explains...