"St. Gemma is My Girl!": Devotional Practices among Millennial Catholics and the Making of Contemporary Catholic Saints
This article analyzes contemporary devotionalism to saints among a group of millennial-generation Catholics. Devotions to the communion of saints have long-been, for many generations of Catholics, practices of building and sustaining relationships between humans and extra-humans. This article explor...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
American Catholic Historical Society
[2016]
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| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2016, Volume: 127, Issue: 4, Pages: 1-21 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBQ North America KCD Hagiography; saints KDB Roman Catholic Church |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article analyzes contemporary devotionalism to saints among a group of millennial-generation Catholics. Devotions to the communion of saints have long-been, for many generations of Catholics, practices of building and sustaining relationships between humans and extra-humans. This article explores a twenty-first century iteration of those practices. Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic research among Catholic missionaries who evangelize on college campuses in the United States, this article examines how these missionaries remix their devotional practices on and for their contemporary American landscape. The article begins with an introduction to contemporary devotions, paying special attention to the centrality of suffering for this group of Catholics, as well as their efforts to be saints in the twenty-first century. Relationships with Saints Gemma Galgani, Faustina Kowalska, and Thérèse of Lisieux were particularly poignant in this worldview. How these young adults prayed with these saints shaped their Catholic identities. This article contributes to scholarship on contemporary Catholic prayer and the making of religious persons. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/acs.2016.0060 |