Introductory Remarks
Panel on the Beatification of Sister Miriam Theresa Demjanovich
Sept 29, 2014
Presented by Douglas A. Sylva, Ph.D.
We are here tonight to celebrate a wonderful event, a unique event, in the history of the Church in New Jersey and of the Paterson Diocese: one of our own, Sister Miriam Demjanovich of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, will be beatified. This means that she will be named ?blessed,? a crucial step on the way to sainthood.
Sister Miriam died in 1927, at the age of only 26. But in that short time, she had managed to establish a reputation for great personal sanctity; this reputation only grew after her death.
The beautification will be held at the Cathedral-Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark this very Saturday, October 4. Cardinal Angelo Amato, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will pronounce Sister Miriam "
beata," blessed. It will mark the first time a beautification has ever occurred on these shores.
This evening, we are honored to be in the presence of three people who have been involved in Sister Miriam's cause for sainthood. They will shed light on her life, her sanctity, as well as the miracle of her intercession.
Through the evening, you will come to see Sister Miriam as a:
A model of religious life.
A model of perseverance in the face of personal and professional challenges.
A model of hope in the face of physical suffering.
An exemplar of the charism of the Sisters of Charity.
And one who found profound meaning in what first appears simple: the basic material of everyday life.
At the Second Vatican Council, the age-old wisdom of the Church was proclaimed and amplified: there is a universal call to sainthood, a call from which no Christian is excluded. Sainthood is not somehow reserved for a chosen few, those separate from the world, above the world, beyond the world. Sainthood is for all of us.
But if this is an invitation, it is also, surely, a challenge. As Pope Benedict put it: "Saintliness, the fullness of Christian life, does not consist in the achievement of extraordinary feats, but in uniting oneself with Christ in making His disposition His behavior our own."
So, yes, we are all invited to piety, even to sainthood, but to achieve sainthood requires a total conversion of our lives away from ourselves and towards Jesus Christ. As Pope Francis has said: "True conversion always entails an apostolic dimension! It always means to stop focusing on one's own interests and to start looking after the interests of Christ Jesus."
What can we learn from the lives of the saints, and from Sister Miriam, to guide us on our personal journey, to help us take up this challenge?
Some were winners in the eyes of the world, but many, if not most, of the saints were losers in the eyes of the world, even in the eyes of the Church. What is common to the saints is that they choose to make the material of their sainthood out of whatever they could find. Saint Anna Schaffer, a Bavarian woman who died two years before Sister Miriam, in 1925, is a case in point. After a terrible accident, Saint Anna Schaffer became bedridden. For the next 24 years she remained confined, and for 24 years she wrote letters of consolation and created needlework for local parishes. "I have three keys to heaven," she wrote. "The biggest is made out of pig iron and is heavy: it is my suffering. The second is the sewing needle, and the third is the penholder. With these three different keys, I strive each day to open the door to heaven." According to Pope Benedict, "Her sickbed became her cloister cell and her suffering a missionary service."
So it is not about the projects, it is about the inner disposition. It is about one's personal relationship with Christ: sainthood is never a devotion to abstract causes, to an ideology; it starts with this personal relationship. Just yesterday, Pope Francis said that we need to be "enamoured of Christ. This is the path of holiness that every Christian must follow: to let himself be loved by the Lord, to open his heart to His love and to allow Him to guide our life."
Sainthood begins not with oneself, but with a relationship. It is therefore natural to build upon that relationship with charity towards others. Love of Christ inspires love of man. According to Pope Francis, "Gratitude for the Lord's love" should awaken in us "a hearty desire to follow him with greater selflessness and generosity, and to live a humble life of service to others."
Love of Christ also means love of the Sacraments: of our God-given means to experience Christ on Earth--To commune with Christ, to seek his mercy in the sacrament of Confession and his closeness in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Therefore, love of Christ means love of the Church as the institutional source of the Sacraments.
Saints show us the way. By their examples, they show us how to grow in piety in our concrete circumstances; not in some perfect circumstances, whatever those might be, but where we are right now. The Saints challenge us to say yes to obligations (none too big or too small) and to persevere to live out those obligations.
And the saints show us how to find joy through faith in our redemption.
Pray to all of them for assistance! Pray to your favorites! Now you can pray to our friend from New Jersey, a baby of Bayonne and a sister of Convent Station, Sister Miriam,to help us on our journey. By Sunday, you will be able to call her, and call on her, as "Blessed"! Blessed Miriam!