The Missionary Sisters of the Office

While I was writing out my thoughts on Andalusada's differences from IRL two nights ago, I came up with the Heretical Hero as an archetype. And then, between that, Taiping China, and my drabblings of writing about the Maroons (out when they're done), I came up with another tropey character, the Maud Missionary.

I really should have written up her first, because while I know that the Maud Missionary is the perfect and rightful heir of St. Matilda, I don't know anything about the movement she's a part of. So little, in fact, that I've been hammering myself for hours about what they're named.

To that end, a conversation with Ebola gave me the working name, and the one I'll be using for the URL: "the Missionaries of Hegemony."

The Missionaries and the Divine Office

Some Catholic movements revolve around the rosary. The Missionaries of Hegemony revolve around the Liturgy of the Hours. All of them, religious or lay, are sworn to recite it in its full each day, and collectively unless it's absolutely impossible to do so. Even though the Gonzalan spirituality underpinning the whole affair doesn't attach morality to its vows, for a Missionary of Hegemony to miss any hour of the Office is a mortal sin. So closely and uniquely are they linked to the Office that one of their many nicknames is the Horarists.

When the Missionaries are sent into the field, their task is to introduce and propagate this same reverence for the Liturgy of the Hours.

• Since this nicety is invariably, alas, unknown, of necessity the Missionaries must take it upon themselves to teach the Liturgy of the Hours as well. This recurses several times, but at very least it means that the Missionaries are responsible for setting up schools (and voice training) to teach their charges.

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