Teresa Demjanovich

Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, SC (March 26, 1901 – May 8, 1927) was an American Ruthenian Greek Catholic and a member of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth. For a life of servitude, much spiritual writing and several blessings to those who invoked her after death, she was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2014. The ceremony, held in Newark, New Jersey, was the first such to take place in the United States.

Early life She was born Teresa Demjanovich in Bayonne, New Jersey, on March 26, 1901, the youngest of the seven children of Alexander Demjanovich and Johanna Suchy, Ruthenian immigrants to the United States from what is now eastern Slovakia. She received Baptism, Chrismation, and First Holy Communion in the Ruthenian Rite of her parents.

Demjanovich grew up beside the oil refineries that mark the landscape of this portion of New Jersey. She completed her grammar school education by the age of eleven, and received her high school diploma in January 1917, from Bayonne High School (at that time located in the present-day Robinson School).

Career and religious beginning At this time, she wished to become a Carmelite, but stayed in the family home to care for her sick mother. After her mother died in the influenza epidemic of November 1918, she was encouraged by her family to attend the College of Saint Elizabeth at Convent Station, New Jersey. She began her college career in September 1919, majoring in literature, and graduated with highest honors in June 1923.

It is claimed that Demjanovich desired a religious life, but various circumstances made her uncertain which community she should enter. Meanwhile, she accepted a teaching position at the Academy of Saint Aloysius in Jersey City. During her time at the college, many individuals remarked on her humility and genuine piety. She could be found kneeling in the college chapel at all hours and was very devoted to praying the rosary.

Demjanovich's profession of permanent religious vows was made in periculo mortis (danger of death) on 2 April 1927. She was operated on for appendicitis on 6 May and died on 8 May 1927. Her funeral was held 11 May 1927 at Holy Family Chapel in Convent Station, New Jersey, and she was buried at Holy Family Cemetery on the grounds of her order's motherhouse.

Favors and cures attributed to her intercession are continually being reported.

Cause for canonization The Sisters of Charity petitioned Rome for permission to open a cause for her beatification because of Demjanovich's saintly life, her striving for perfection in her religious life, spiritual writings, and the favors received by others after her death through her intercession with God. Rev. Stephen W Findlay, O.S.B, of the Delbarton School, near Morristown, New Jersey, was appointed procurator, and the official investigation began early in 1946. The Sister Miriam Teresa League of Prayer was founded in the summer of 1946 to spread the knowledge of her life and mission, and to work for the cause of her beatification. The headquarters for the League is located in the Administration Building of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth. Silvia Correale is the present Postulator for the Cause of Sister Miriam Teresa in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

On Thursday, May 10, 2012, Demjanovich was proclaimed venerable by Pope Benedict XVI. On December 17, 2013, Pope Francis approved the attribution of miraculous healing to the intercession of Demjanovich, opening the way to her beatification. The cause of her beatification involved the restoration of perfect vision to a boy who had gone legally blind because of macular degeneration. Msgr. Giampaolo Rizzotti of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints added that the miracle took place in 1964. Demjanovich was beatified at a ceremony on October 4, 2014, held at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark. This was the first time a beatification had ever been held in the United States.

Veneration According to Sister Marian Jose, S.C., Vice Postulator of the Cause of Sister Miriam Teresa, Demjanovich's message is that “everyone is called to holiness”.

On January 1, 2016, the Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich Parish in Bayonne, New Jersey was established after the merger of St. Mary Star of the Sea and St. Andrew the Apostle churches.

A first-class relic of Blessed Miriam Teresa is part of the Treasures of the Church Exposition.

Writings