Photo of the Day: A New Jersey Saint in the Making

I took the image accompanying this post this past Sunday, when I traveled down to Convent Station, NJ, to visit Holy Family Church, on the grounds of the home of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth. There, a legacy room and history wall was being dedicated in memory of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, a New Jersey nun now being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church.

Sister Miriam (1901-1927) was the daughter of Slavic emigrants who settled in Bayonne, N.J. She graduated from the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station, and two years later entered the novitiate. Like another nun 30 years before, St. Therese of Lisieux, she died while still only in her twenties, but not before producing a notable work of spirituality (in Sister Miriam’s case, Greater Perfection).

Starting in the mid-1940s, Sister Miriam was seriously promoted for canonization. That effort reached its climax to date five years ago, when Pope Francis declared her “Blessed”—i.e., one miracle has been credited to her, with a second necessary for sainthood.

The last time I visited Convent Station was nearly 30 years ago, for the funeral of my elementary school principal. This time, at the Mass in dedication of the legacy room for Sister Miriam, I encountered several other nuns that I knew at St. Cecilia Elementary and High School in Englewood, N.J., who now reside in the “Motherhouse,” or convent of St. Elizabeth. Abundant warmth and humor have kept them alive and in decent health well into their senior years.

The legacy room and history wall featured the work of Willy Malarcher and my St. Cecilia classmate and lifelong friend, Pat Norton Portanova. You can see some of Pat’s fine handiwork in the ceiling in this photo.