I know that many people in the parish have roots in Philadelphia, so are probably familiar with the two saints associated with that city: St. John Neumann and St. Katharine Drexel. But did you know that the first beatification ever held in the United States was for a religious sister from Bayonne, NJ? On October 4, 2014, in the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, a Sister of Charity was named Blessed. So, who was this remarkable woman from New Jersey who is often regarded as the American Therese of the Child Jesus?

Miriam Demjanovich was born on March 26, 1901 as the youngest of seven children. Her parents were immigrants from what is now Slovakia. The family were Ruthenian Catholics, one of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church. An intelligent child, Miriam completed high school at the age of 16. She wanted to become a Carmelite nun, like St. Therese, but here mother became ill, so Miriam stayed home to care of her mother. Her mother died in November, 1918, and the following September Miriam entered St. Elizabeth’s College in Convent Station, NJ.

She graduated from St. Elizabeth’s College with highest honors with a Bachelor of Literature in June, 1923. Miriam was hired to teach at St. Aloysius Academy in Jersey City.

Having always been very devout and active in her parish, for many years Miriam felt called to religious life. In 1924, after much prayer and discernment, God revealed to her that she enter the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity at Convent Station, NJ. She entered on February 11, 1925 and received her habit as a novice and name in religion, Sr. Miriam Teresa, on May 17, 1925. Sr. Miriam Teresa noted that was the date of the canonization of St. Therese, “The Little Flower of Jesus.” While still a novice, Sr. Miriam Teresa taught at St. Elizabeth’s Academy.

What makes Sr. Miriam Teresa so special was the spiritual insights that she had. While she was still a novice, her spiritual director, Fr. Benedict Bradley, OSB, asked her to write a series of conferences on the spiritual life. Fr. Bradley then gave those conferences to the other novices, without them knowing that they were written by their fellow novice, Sr. Miriam. In fact, these conferences quickly were recognized for their deep spirituality, that they started to be shared at other communities of religious sisters, beginning in other houses of the Sisters of Charity, but then to other religious orders and even into Ireland and England. The central message of her conferences was that everyone is called to holiness.

In December 1926, Sr. Miriam Teresa suffered a very severe attack of tonsilitis. As her health continued to decline, she was admitted to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Elizabeth, NJ where she remained for the last four months of her life. She died on May 8, 1927.

After her death, Fr. Bradley gave all the conferences that Sr. Miriam Teresa had written, and a few other works, to her brother, Fr. Charles Demjanovich. Due to the many requests for copies of the conferences, Fr. Demjanovich edited his sister’s writings into the book Greater Perfection: A Means of Achieving Union with God through Prayer.

I first heard about Blessed Miriam Teresa reading an article about some other Americans who’s cause for canonization has been proposed. Being from New Jersey, the idea of someone from New Jersey being on the road to sainthood attracted my attention, especially since my middle sister, Jennifer, attended the College of St. Elizabeth, in Convent Station. The book, Greater Perfection, had fallen out of print, but the Sisters of Charity wrote me in the Spring to tell me that they had started printing the book again. I bought a copy, and have been reading it for the past couple of weeks. Blessed Miriam Teresa truly was a gifted spiritual writer. I would highly recommend the book to everyone.