#Adoration: Holy Hour Devotions and Millennial' Twenty-First Century Catholic Identity

This historically-informed ethnographic article describes the surprising popularity of Holy Hour and Eucharistic devotions among a subculture of "devout" millennial-generation Catholics. Adoration-based prayer practices—updated and reinterpreted for a new generation of Catholics—constitute how these millennials articulate and embody their contemporary Catholic identities. These young adults work to interpret Catholicism as relevant and distinctive through the way they pray. While they perform a variety of Catholic practices, central to their Catholic identity is a remixed version of a once-popular Holy Hour devotion. Praying with an emphasis on the real presence of Jesus in this Eucharistic devotion, millennials simultaneously knit themselves into a history of Catholic sacramental life while also relying on those devotions to help them be triumphantly Catholic in the twenty-first century. The Holy Hour connects young adults to Catholic tradition while also providing a language of Catholic exceptionalism that they use to draw boundaries around their Catholic identity in the contemporary U.S.