“If you only knew how well, how calm one is after a good confession!… That’s the first benefit of confession.”

Marcel PAGNOL (1895-1974)
Writer, Playwright, Filmmaker

“What makes Cucugnan a nursery for the damned is that you don’t go to confession!… Every evening, at six o’clock, I’m there in this sacred turret, like a soldier on watch, or like a hunter in his stand, and I wait… From time to time a good old woman comes, or two or three little ones from catechism class. Then, nothing more. I stay anyway… I hear a candle that sizzles, a mouse gnawing the foot of the pulpit, the cry of a swallow high up in the bell tower… and little by little the cold in my feet rises, my legs get heavy, and finally I fall asleep. Well, my dear brothers, my dear sisters, that has to change, and that’s going to change, because there is nothing to it. I’m not asking you to be virtuous right away: virtue doesn’t come so quick. Continue to cheat the scales for a while, to put water in the other’s wine, flirt with the neighbor’s wife, smile at the neighbor’s husband. Continue to lie, to keep the poor man’s part, to binge in secret. But, for the love of God, do not forget the despairing cry of Toritillard : “Hear my confession!” For him, alas, it was too late. But for you, who still have the chance to obtain the pardon of divine mercy, don’t be so stupid as to refuse this grand privilege that we owe to the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Marcel PAGNOL (1895-1974)
Writer, Playwright, Filmmaker