NJ Charity Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich to be beatified in Newark.
You don’t have to go to Rome to celebrate the beatification of an American Catholic, just over to New Jersey.
Specifically, the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, N.J., is where Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, a Byzantine Catholic sister who died in 1927 at the age of 26, will be beatified on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 9:30 a.m.
According to Catholic Philly.com Archbishop Charles Chaput received a letter this week from Bishop Kurt Burnette, bishop of the Catholic Byzantine Eparchy (similar to a diocese) of Passaic, N.J., inviting all Catholics of the area to join in the celebration.
“Not many people around the country are aware that an American woman, Sister Miriam Teresa … will be declared ‘blessed,’” Bishop Burnette said in his letter.
Born in 1901 in Bayonne, N.J., Sister Miriam Teresa earned a bachelor’s degree in literature from the College of St. Elizabeth in New Jersey, a rarity for American women in 1923.
The story was picked up by the Washington Post.
For more details of her life visit the website of the Sisters of Charity New Jersey.
[For information about Sister Miriam Teresa, visit the Web site, www.scnj.org. For a copy of her biography or other books of her writings or prayer cards; to join the Sister Miriam Teresa League of Prayer; to schedule a presentation, call (973) 290-5465.]
It is, indeed, a great joy! Two corrections: th Sisters of Charity are obviously not a “contemplative religious order,” and she did pronounce vows on April 2, 1927 “in danger of death.”
Thanks for picking up on these points. I had noticed them myself in the RNS article by Dan Gibson which was in turn picked up by the Washington Post. I thought I purged those references in an early draft but obviously
slipped through but have now been removed. Obviously the link I provided to the Sisters of Charity own website should be regarded as authoritative information.