Crowdsourcing my fic research
Okay, I have a question for the Catholics and/or historical scholars around these parts! I am working on a fic, and the one scene that's keeping it from being finished is hung up on the fact that I know nothing about what confession would have been like for a nun in France in the 1820s. I don't mean the exact rite -- I can find the Latin, but I can also write around that part; what I need to figure out are the relevant attitudes.
Google is no help, or I am insufficiently good at Google, because all I can find are a) very general modern explanations of confession, or b) equally modern encouragements for Catholics to go to confession more often. And being raised Episcopalian is in this case no use at all. So I turn to my flist.
Here's the situation: Simplice is a Lazarine sister in 1823 -- not cloistered, but working as a nursing Sister of Charity. She's known for having never told a lie, and for holding lying as a deep sin and an affront against God. Except... she does, on one momentous and canonical occasion, tell a direct lie. To save a man, she lies to a policeman and tells him that she hasn't seen the man, when he is in fact hiding in the same room. (Yes, this is Les Mis; yes, this is Valjean and Javert.) So it's a sin, and one she considers a major one, but she doesn't regret it in the sense of wishing she hadn't done it.
My story picks up right after that, and covers some time afterwards, and necessarily involves her going directly to talk to the curé of the parish about some other matters (both practical and time-sensitive). I don't need to write the confession scene, necessarily, but I need to know if she would have immediately taken confession about her lie, or what. How does this work if you repent the sin but don't regret the act? What counts as contrition for this purpose? Are there other dimensions to consider in the church structure, with a non-cloistered nun and a parish priest, which would affect the timing or the fact of the confession? HOW DOES THIS WORK I DON'T KNOOOOW. I don't need 100% certainty, but I do need general plausibility, and I don't feel at all secure about what is and isn't plausible. All assistance gratefully welcomed!
This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/157616.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like.
comments at DW.
Google is no help, or I am insufficiently good at Google, because all I can find are a) very general modern explanations of confession, or b) equally modern encouragements for Catholics to go to confession more often. And being raised Episcopalian is in this case no use at all. So I turn to my flist.
Here's the situation: Simplice is a Lazarine sister in 1823 -- not cloistered, but working as a nursing Sister of Charity. She's known for having never told a lie, and for holding lying as a deep sin and an affront against God. Except... she does, on one momentous and canonical occasion, tell a direct lie. To save a man, she lies to a policeman and tells him that she hasn't seen the man, when he is in fact hiding in the same room. (Yes, this is Les Mis; yes, this is Valjean and Javert.) So it's a sin, and one she considers a major one, but she doesn't regret it in the sense of wishing she hadn't done it.
My story picks up right after that, and covers some time afterwards, and necessarily involves her going directly to talk to the curé of the parish about some other matters (both practical and time-sensitive). I don't need to write the confession scene, necessarily, but I need to know if she would have immediately taken confession about her lie, or what. How does this work if you repent the sin but don't regret the act? What counts as contrition for this purpose? Are there other dimensions to consider in the church structure, with a non-cloistered nun and a parish priest, which would affect the timing or the fact of the confession? HOW DOES THIS WORK I DON'T KNOOOOW. I don't need 100% certainty, but I do need general plausibility, and I don't feel at all secure about what is and isn't plausible. All assistance gratefully welcomed!
This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/157616.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like.
comments at DW.