I would like to bring in here the story of the film “Chocolate” directed by Lasse Hallström [Heinrich Jacob, Der Prediger und Katechet, 6/2002. pages. 849-851]. A small, sleepy, and quiet french city. The inhabitants are lower-middle class, strictly moralistic, tied to tradtion, scrupulous and totally unfree internally and externally. No one dares to be different. Everyone goes to church. The mayor runs the city within the framework of rigid rules. He even corrects the Sunday sermons of the parish priest.
A young mother with her little daughter moves into this city and opens a chocolate shop at the time of Lent. She makes delicious chocolates of different types, which once tasted, no one could resist. This lady is energetic, charming, goal-oriented, sensitive and empathetic. She knows well to sell her chocolates. And she captivates the attention of the entire city.
This shop, the lady and the chocolates disturb the people, that too, at a time of fasting. People, starting with someone daring, begin to buy the chocolates. The established, ordered and the regulated life of the city is disturbed. The chocolate shop becomes the meeting point of the people of the city. There is encounter, conversation, friendship, joy and laughter. But there is also opposition. The lady is even threatened in order to leave the city. But the openness and the trust of the people for the joy and hope she brought into their lives overcome all opposition. And we see the mayor himself quietly climbing a tree to have a look at the chocolates in the shop-window. Finally all come to the shop, mayor and the priest alike. And the priest was ever after free to preach
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