One of my MCs is Catholic, a novice training to be a Sister.
No, I'm not going to narrow it down to specific areas, because it won't actually come up, and it won't even really matter that much when it's all said and done because it's an alternate earth with things like vampires and demons and underworld influences, and this specific convent and church its associated with takes a more direct approach on dealing with things. (Which is how my MC wound up joining, she was semi-adopted and taken on as an apprentice to a demon hunter, and after the hunter died, she joined the convent for a different means of accomplishing much of the same.)
I've been hunting for a lot of links and information, and I'm mostly just tossing this out for three reasons.
1) To help others who are tackling Catholic characters -- they might benefit from the links I've already gathered.
2) To see if anyone else has more links to offer up that might help me get a better idea of how I might write and portray life in an abbey.
3) If anyone has any first or secondhand direct information to share, I'm open to that too.
I was raised Catholic, and for a while in my youth, I considered becoming a Sister as well. But that was long ago and far away, and I'm desperately needing to refresh my memory. And yes, I've seen "The Sound of Music", "Sister Act" and other such things, and I'm a little more interested in factual information as opposed fictional works (regardless of how accurate it may or may not be) so I can be in a better position to decide how things work in my world (instead of say, making a translation from a translation, so to speak.)
----------
Project Download
5 million hits. 1 life.
6,401 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2007 - 01 12
... *KICKS THE FORUM* I should be able to edit my own posts. DX
But here's the link to my post -________-
http://zannechaos.insanejournal.com/40706.html
----------Project Download
5 million hits. 1 life.
51,807 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2007 - 08 28
Dear ZC (hello again)
One of the great books about monastic life, although it's about male Carthusians, is "An Infinity of Little Hours" by Nancy Klein Maguire. It's about five young men who join the monastery in the sixties and all but one eventually leaves. It's about the daily lifestyle of the monastic life and is very rich in the psychological experiences of novices. http://www.nancykleinmaguire.com/infinityoflittlehours/description.html
There's a movie, "Into Great Silence" (Die Grosse Stille) that releases on DVD November 6. (It's also about Carthusians.) Here's the review from Netflix: A prize winner at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, director Philip Groening's study of the Grande Chartreuse monastery introduces a world of austere beauty, following the daily activities of the resident monks, whose silence is broken only by prayer and song. With no other sound save the natural rhythms of age-old routines being carried out, the film captures the simplicity -- and profundity -- of lives lived with absolute purpose and presence.
Alas, I haven't done much reading into convent life but I would assume that there are similarities.
Dave Z
----------52,273 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2007 - 19 28
One of the great books about monastic life, although it's about male Carthusians, is "An Infinity of Little Hours" by Nancy Klein Maguire. It's about five young men who join the monastery in the sixties and all but one eventually leaves. It's about the daily lifestyle of the monastic life and is very rich in the psychological experiences of novices. http://www.nancykleinmaguire.com/infinityoflittlehours/description.html
Dave Z
The problem is that there is a HUGE difference between life in a monastery and life in a convent. People tend to use the words interchangeably, but you can't, not if you want to be accurate.
Those who choose a cloistered religious community life live in a monastery. Those who choose a religious life that is not cloistered may or may not live in a convent. Both are common living quarters, but those who live in convents typically have work that they go out to, returning home for community activities, prayer, and sleep. The cloistered ones do not leave except for emergencies and typically their prayer IS their work (though some monasteries have a work that they do inside the monastery--fruitcake, anyone?)
Beyond that, each community has its own customs and traditions for bringing a new person into the community. Generally speaking, one does not "train to be a sister," but learns the charism and practice of the community and discerns, with others, the validity of one's call.
Shannon
51,807 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2007 - 21 36
Shannon, what you say is also true of monasteries. Not all are cloistered. Monastery/male, convent/female.
And there are cloistered convents as well, such as the Carmelites.
I would assume that we who live in the world would understand pretty well the part of convent life which blends the convent and the world outside as a place of service. But that inner trend or desire for a cloistered life, set apart, would be a different sort of feeling and one that we might not have much without our lives which would allow us to understand it. And also to understand the currents and politics of such a community, as well as the operation of events such as chapter meetings, etc.
What's great about the book "An Infinity of Little Hours" is that it describes details about that strand of monastic life. The diet, the devotions, what they read, when they can or can't talk with each other, what they talk about. The cold, the cloth of the habit, the manual labor they perform, the furniture in their cells. These details could help inform a novel. It is particularly rich in the emotions and experiences of these novices regarding their decision to stay within the order or leave it. The book is very honest about the challenges of such a life and could be used to help form believeable characters.
The Carthusian life is certainly an extreme version of the desire to become a part of a religious community and serve under a rule and an abbot or abbess, but those extremes can inform as we try to create believeable characters. My experience with Roman catholic orders is much more with the Benedictines (St. Meinrad's Archabbey) and I have a great acquaintance from 1976-1980 with what I believe to be one of the best of the informal orders of nuns, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth based out of Bardstown, Kentucky. As nuns who operate schools and hospitals, they were well acquainted with the real world, as you describe in your post. They live in small communities, often in homes, as well as institutional settings and my wife and I were privileged once to live in such a home with four of the sisters for three weeks in the inner city of Louisville. While perhaps technically not correct, they referred to the small house they rented as "their convent."
Dave Z
----------0 / 50,000
Nov 24, 2007 - 06 22
A lot will depend on your main character. Different personality types are drawn to very different orders. A contemplative doesn't see the world in exactly the same way as a sister in a more active-in-the-world order.