September 3, 2023 - "Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich"

Today’s column is devoted to Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich (1901-1927). Teresa Demjanovich was born to a Ruthenian family who had emigrated to New Jersey.  She was a very intelligent young woman who graduated from high school at the age of 15.  Although she wished to enter religious life, she delayed this to take care of her parents who were both terminally ill.  While a student at the College of St. Elizabeth she received a startling vision, which she described in these words:  “I was saying my Rosary here at the window seat when suddenly the grounds outside appeared in dazzling light and the blessed Mother was clearly seen by me.”
 
In 1925 Teresa entered the Sisters of Charity in Convent Station, New Jersey.  As a novice she received the name Miriam Teresa.  Her spiritual director quickly discerned her special gifts.  He asked her to write his conferences to the novices - even though she was a novice herself.  Only after she died did her spiritual director reveal that she was the true author of his conferences.  The conferences that she had written for her spiritual director to use with the novices were entitled Greater Perfection.  The theme of the conferences was that the way of holiness was compatible with every state in life:  “Union with God is the spiritual height God calls everyone to achieve - not only religious but anyone, who chooses, who wills to seek this pearl of great price, who specializes in the traffic of eternal good, who constantly says ‘yes’ to God.”  Once they were published, Sr. Miriam Teresa’s reflections found a wide following.
 
In November 1926 Sister Miriam Teresa became gravely ill.  She was allowed to make her profession of religious vows a month before her death on May 8, 1927, at the age of twenty-six.  Her beatification in October 2014 at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, N.J. was the first beatification celebrated in the United States.
 
Let me finish this column with this quotation from Blessed Miriam Teresa: “Keep the ways of the Lord…. The way of the cross is the path of self-sacrifice and denial.  Only a humble soul can walk this path securely.”
 
Until next week,
Fr. John