Venerating the Relics of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich

Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich

On a beautiful winter day, we found ourselves in Convent Station, New Jersey on the picturesque campus of St Elizabeth University. Home to the Sisters of Charity of St Elizabeth, the campus boasts the beautiful Holy Family Chapel, which was dedicated in 1909.

That day, the Chapel being open, we decided to enter and say our obligatory prayers. A serene, peaceful setting, the Holy Family Chapel was the perfect place to pray in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

After our prayers and contemplation, we were greeted by Sister Regina Bernard, who graciously asked if we’d like to see the relics of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich. We happily and excitedly agreed.

Holy Family Chapel, Convent Station, New Jersey

***

Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich was born on March 26, 1901, in Bayonne, New Jersey to Ruthenian immigrant parents, the youngest of seven children. She was raised in the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Rite. After losing her mother to the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1918, she studied at the then-named College of St Elizabeth. It was at the College of St Elizabeth’s St Rita Hall where as a student, Miriam Teresa had a vision of our Blessed Mother from her dormitory room. Miriam Teresa went on to graduate from the College of St. Elizabeth in 1923 with the highest honors. Shortly after, Miriam Teresa accepted her first teaching position.

Miriam Teresa had been discerning entering a religious order, and she finally joined the Sisters of Charity of St Elizabeth, receiving the habit in 1925. As a postulant and then a novice, she taught at the Academy of St Elizabeth, still located on the Convent Station campus. Sister Miriam Teresa was known for her piety and devotion to the Holy Rosary. Much of her time when she wasn’t working would be dedicated to prayer. Sister Miriam Teresa also wrote twenty-six conferences for the novitiate at the request of her spiritual advisor which are now compiled in the book titled Greater Perfection.

Unfortunately, in 1926 Sister Miriam Teresa’s health began to decline precipitously. Suffering from tonsillitis, appendicitis, myocarditis, and nervous exhaustion, Sister Miriam Teresa took her permanent vows in periculo mortis in April 1927. She died on May 8, 1927. Her funeral was held in the Holy Family Chapel and she was buried in the Holy Family Cemetery on the grounds of the Sisters of Charity of St Elizabeth motherhouse.

After a number of cures were reported due to her intercession, an official investigation by the Church was begun in 1946. In 2012, Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich was declared venerable by Pope Benedict XVI and was beatified in 2014 at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey, the first time a beatification was ever held in the United States.

In 2016, the remains of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich were transferred from the crypt to a new shrine in Holy Family Chapel. In a room adjacent to the Chapel, we find some of the personal items owned by Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich: her crucifix, her statuette of the Infant Jesus, her watercolors, brushes, and a picture of violets she painted symbolizing the Trinity as she was also an amateur artist.

We still await and pray fervently for her canonization.

Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich's Crucifix

Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich's Statuette of the Infant Jesus

Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich's Watercolors

A watercolor of violets representing the Trinity
by Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich

***

Sister Regina Bernard led us to the shrine on the left of the high altar, recounting the story of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demianovich and her relics. The beautiful shrine is contained within an alcove, framed by gothic-style arches. This shrine serves as a perfect permanent resting place for the relics of this Blessed Miriam Teresa. The relics themselves are preserved within an octagonal reliquary cask, fitted with a Waterford crystal for the purpose of viewing said holy relics. Beneath are rectangular boxes containing soil taken from her gravesite which form the base of the shrine.

Joining Sister Regina Bernard, we prayed before the relics of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, begging for her intercession. Kneeling before the holy relics, we peered inside the crystal oculus. Strands of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich’s hair lay across the crystal, and deep within the reliquary, we beheld her bones, the holy relics of this blessed woman.

Kneeling before her relics in veneration and prayer, the devotion of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich touches our hearts. Her brief time with us, nearly one hundred years past was a gift from our Lord Jesus Christ. In her humility and service, she bestowed upon us a model of sanctity, humility, and dedication to God.

~ Pasquale De Davide

The Reliquary

The reliquary's Waterford crystal oculus, with strands of hair

Inside the reliquary: the holy relics of
Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich

***

Prayer for Canonization of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich

Most Holy and Blessed Trinity, Whom Blessed Miriam Teresa loved so ardently, grant that we, like her, may become ever more conscious of Your Divine Presence within our souls. We implore You to continue to show signs that Your humble servant enjoys glory with You in Heaven, and to hasten the day when we may render her a lasting tribute of our veneration and love.

Photo of the Week: "Sappho" Fresco from Pompeii, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

Commonly called Sappho, the fresco depicts a woman holding writing implements. Pompeii, ca. 50 AD, Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Feast of St. John the Apostle at the Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Raritan, New Jersey

Brief Excerpt from “Mysticism, Magic, & Monasteries: Recovering the Sacred Mystery at the Heart of Reality” by Sebastian Morello

The Magic of Christmas is Real

DURING Advent, when the Church prepares herself for Christmas, her members enter a time of mortification and penance as they await the coming of the child Jesus. Frequent invitations to drink mulled wine and eat mince pies with brandy butter in the weeks preceding Christmas Day can make this difficult. One way to observe Advent, however, is to eat less meat. Fortunately, during that very time of the year, easily hunted mushrooms—beings that belong to a kingdom between the animal and plant kingdoms—appear across much of the countryside. One Advent season, I strolled into a well-manured grassland to discover hundreds of field blewits. There they were before me, great jellyish saucers standing on purple stems in terrific fairy rings across the green pasture.

Fairies had obviously been gathering at night for their hibernal celebrations. They likely danced and laughed, played tricks on one another, and fell about amid the ribaldry that is the inevitable effect of those pixie draughts from fermented hawthorn berries. The evidence of this was all around me. Those mushrooms marked the sacred circles of the sprites with whom we share our landscape, whose rights and entitlements we disregard.

Due to the mental fog of late modernity that incrementally distorted our vision, we grew blind to the iconographic character of the world around us, and so the fairies disappeared. Slowly, we ceased to see that things are not only substances but symbols. Modern people would never call a fungal formation of spore-scattering fruits from a complex underground mycelial web a "fairy ring,” just as modern people, when carving a pathway for horseless carriages through the rustic countryside that our ancestors gifted us, do not call it "Hollybush Road" or "Brown Cow Lane" or "The Great Eastern Way" or some other such name, but the "M650" or the "Ai4.” Everything in late modernity is instrumental rather than meaningful, formulaic rather than poetic, and consequently grey rather than colourful. We reduced all insight, inspiration, understanding, comprehension, contemplation, appreciation, observation, discernment, and awareness to the one quantitative category of "information, and thereby emptied our minds of all that really matters—and the world we have made around us reflects this cognitive corruption.

* Reprinted from Mysticism, Magic, & Monasteries: Recovering the Sacred Mystery at the Heart of Reality by Sebastian Morello, Os Justi Press, 2024, pp.82-83

Feast of Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini

Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini, ora pro nobis

December 22nd is the Feast of Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini (1850-1917), Religious and Foundress. Invoked against malaria, she is the patron saint of immigrants, emigrants, orphans, and hospital administrators. She founded numerous institutions, including the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to help the poor, uneducated and sick immigrants from Italy. She was the first naturalized citizen of these United States to be canonized on July 7, 1946. Mother Cabrini’s memorial is also celebrated on November 13th.

In celebration, we’re posting a prayer for St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. The accompanying photos were taken at the Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in Washington Heights, New York. Evviva Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini!

Prayer to St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

O Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, who found in the Divine Heart of Jesus the secret of sanctity and the strength to carry His message to many nations, look kindly upon me and hear my prayer.

Inspired by Christ’s charity, you went about helping many in their spiritual and temporal needs; from the glory of Heaven, where your charity is not lessened nor your power weakened, grant my petition and obtain for me the grace I so urgently desire. (Mention your request.)

From the Sacred Heart of Jesus obtain that His Kingdom may be established in this world, now divided by hatred and dissensions; secure peace among nations, conversion of the sinners, health to the sick, alleviation for the victims of war, deliverance of the souls in Purgatory, salvation for the human race redeemed by Christ Our Savior. Amen

S. Messa in Suffragio di S.M. Francesco II di Borbone

In Ardore

Christmas at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Shrine in East Harlem, New York

Ongoing Exhibit at the Italian American Museum in Little Italy, New York

Sicilian Theater in Little Italy: The Return of the Manteo Puppets

For more information, visit the Italianamericanmuseum.org

Happy Winter!

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The occasion signifies the coming increase of sunlight and the slow return of spring. In honor of this wondrous cycle I would like to share a poem by Cosimo Savastano (b. 1939 – Castel di Sangro, Abruzzo) from Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy: Texts and Criticism (A Trilingual Anthology) edited by Luigi Bonaffini, Legas, 1997, p.69.

The Kindling

Tied to the packsaddle, my love,
is the firewood, brought down from the mountain.
What hands will loosen the ropes
at dusk, once the north wind settles?

Tonight, we'll stoke the cinders
watch the swirl of sparks.
Hands locked, love rekindled,
spellbound, we will dream.
From the hearth my kindling will lord
over the house, filled with the scent of Christmas.

(Translated by Anthony Molino)

Midnight Mass at Corpus Christi Church in South River, New Jersey

Midnight Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Newark, New Jersey

A Prayer for Magdeburg, Germany

St. Norbert, ora pro nobis

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the December 20th terror attack at a crowded Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. May St. Maurice, St. Boniface, St. Adalbert, St. Mechtild, and St. Norbert pray and watch over you.

Prayer for Victims of Terrorism

Loving God, welcome into your arms the victims of violence and terrorism. Comfort their families and all who grieve for them. Help us in our fear and uncertainty, and bless us with the knowledge that we are secure in your love. Strengthen all those who work for peace, and may the peace the world cannot give reign in our hearts. Amen.

* Photo courtesy of Fr. Eugene Carrella

A Cool Find

Earlier today, at a yard sale in Brooklyn, I stumbled upon a couple of vintage postcards depicting the poets Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938). Both were printed in Milano and dated 1921.

Ponderable Quote from “A Catholic Quest for the Holy Grail” by Charles A. Coulombe

Obviously, whether we are ruled by noble heroes or worthless villains is not something most of us have any control over. But there is one element of life in Camelot—and, indeed, all the courts, high or low, which ever existed in Christendom—that we can take away and make our own. Life therein was governed by the liturgical year. Christmas was the day Arthur first drew the sword from the stone; as we know from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the feast was well kept at his court:

This king lay at Camelot nigh on Christmas
with many lovely lords, of leaders the best,
reckoning of the Round Table all the rich brethren,
with right ripe revel and reckless mirth.
There tourneyed tykes by times full many,
jousted full jollily these gentle knights,
then carried to court, their carols to make.
For there the feast was alike full fifteen days.

* Reprinted from A Catholic Quest for the Holy Grail by Charles A. Coulombe, TAN Books, 2017, p. 163

O Antiphon Dinner in New York City

I Giorni della Memoria Borbonica

Convegno on line con studiosi, docenti e giornalisti.

Novena to the Holy Innocents

Holy Innocents, orate pro nobis

Pray novena for nine consecutive days, December 19th to December 27th, in preparation for the Feast celebrated on December 28th.

O Holy Innocents in the name of Jesus, for whom your blood was shed, pray for exploited and abused children. O Holy Innocents who, for the sake of the Christ Child your sacrifice was offered, intercede for the captive and suffering children. O Holy Innocents whose blood was sanctified by the precious blood of the Savior, preserve the purity and innocence of children and be their help and comfort. Heavenly Father, I ask that you look with great mercy upon the peril of innocent children being violated in the world and deliver them from every evil. I beg your mercy through the sacrifice of the Holy Innocents and through the sacrificial love of your beloved Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be

* The accompanying photo was taken in the narthex of the Church of the Holy Innocents in New York City 

New Book — The Art of Immigration, Donatus Buongiorno: Italian and American, Artist and Entrepreneur

A new title that may be of interest to our readers. Available at Amazon.com

• The Art of Immigration, Donatus Buongiorno: Italian and American, Artist and Entrepreneur by Janice Carapellucci

Publisher: Mary Brown
Publication Date: November 20, 2024
Paperback: $37.03
Language: English
Pages: 306

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Upcoming Latin Mass Intentions for the Conversion of the Society Enrollees

Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Our Lady of the Expectation, ora pro nobis

O Virgo virginum, quomodo fiet istud?
Quia nec primam similem visa es nec habere sequentem.
Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini?
Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.*

December 18th is the Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Holy Mother of God. With only a week left before Christmas, let us use the remaining graces of Advent wisely and meditate on Our Lady’s Maternity in preparation for the coming great Solemnity of Our Lord’s Nativity. 

In joyous celebration, we’re posting a prayer to Our Lady of the Expectation. The accompanying photo of the Annunciazione by Andrea Malinconico (Napoli 1624-1689) was taken at Museo Civico di Castel Nuovo (Maschio Angioino) in 2010 in Naples.

Collect

O God, Who did will that Thy Word should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the message of the Angel, grant to us, Thy humble servants and handmaids, that we who truly believe Her to be the Mother of God may be helped by Her intercession with Thee. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

* The Great Antiphon to Our Lady

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be?

For before you there was none like you, nor shall there be after.

Daughters of Jerusalem, why do you marvel at me?

What you behold is a divine mystery.

Observing Advent Embertide

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Even though Ember Days are no longer required by the post-Conciliar Church, the faithful should still observe these penitential days of devotion for spiritual enrichment, inner renewal, and as a means of reparation for our sins. A corruption of the Latin Quatuor Tempora, which means “four times,” Ember Days are three days of prayer, fasting and charity set aside four times a year to give thanks to God for the fruits of the earth, to practice abstemiousness, and almsgiving.

The quarterly observances, which correspond to the changing seasons, are kept on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following the Feast of St. Lucy in Winter (Advent Embertide); the week after Ash Wednesday in Spring (Lenten Embertide); after Pentecost Sunday in Summer (Whit Embertide); and after the third Sunday in September in Autumn (Michaelmas Embertide).

An ancient tradition, Ember days are believed to have arisen from the early Church’s sanctifying of the old Roman agricultural festivals of sowing and harvesting (i.e. the feriae sementivae, feriae messis, and feriae vindimiales). Though probably older, the Liber Pontificalis (Book of Popes) ascribes a law ordering the fast to Pope Callixtus, who died in 222. In addition to focussing on God’s gifts of nature, they are traditionally popular days for the Rite of Ordination of priests and prayers for the poor and forgotten Souls in Purgatory. Due to the fertility aspects, Ember Days are also ideal for married couples to pray for lots of children and their safe delivery.

In celebration, I’m posting the anthem and prayer for Embertide from Blessed Be God: A Complete Catholic Prayer Book by Very Rev. Charles J. Callan, OP., S.T.M. and Very Rev. John A. McHugh, OP., S.T.M (Preserving Christian Publications, 2010). The accompanying photo of the Holy Family by Salvatore di Franco was taken at the Metropolitan Museum of art in New York City. Erecting presepi (Nativity scenes) is a traditional Duosiciliano Advent tradition.

A Prayer for Embertide

Ant. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all He hath done for thee.
V. Lord, Thou hast been our refuge.
R. From generation to generation. 

Let us Pray
Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that as year by year we devoutly keep these holy observances, we may be pleasing to Thee both in body and soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Christmas Eve at St. Josaphat Church in Bayside, New York

In the Ruins of Christendom, We Shall Live

Detail from the Ghent
Altarpiece, Jan van Eyck

Guest Op-Ed

Submitted by John Ogilvie

The Kings of Christendom are nearly all gone. In the world of Christendom, Christian kings bent their knee to God’s law, and held that law as a sacred trust to be revered and enshrined in every subject’s heart. That was a great world, where earthly kings reigned who acknowledged Jesus Christ as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The once-great world belongs to the distant past. Now, we live after Christendom; all her kings are gone, and her thrones lie in the dust, torn down by the gods of the revolutions of modern man—the modern man who tramples everywhere on the laws of nature and the laws of God. Such is our world, our brave new world, for the modern man. Be not fooled though: It is a world that runs thick with blood: the blood of revolutions, the blood of the unborn innocent; the blood of those who would not bend their knee to the gods of revolution. I will not dwell in a bloody brave new world.

But amidst the chaos and wreckage of the revolutions of modern man, you and I have glimpsed the ruins and the remnants of Christendom. We have seen the glory of Christ the King in his great churches, in the silent majesty of his basilicas, in his ancient rites of grace. In Christendom’s Gothic churches, we have often found true palaces of the Virgin, built by the faithful peasants of a bygone age to their beloved Lady. We have heard the sound of our King’s ancient rites. Indeed, we have heard the chants and songs of Christendom. We know a beauty ever ancient, ever new. We know that the ruins of Christendom are better than the gleaming towers of the brave new world—of the hollow men. One day in the ruins of Christendom is better than a thousand elsewhere.

Christ is my King; Him alone will I serve; in his kingdom’s ruins will I live. Time hath worn us with rainy marching in the fields of this world’s battles. But we are warriors for the working day. Under the standard of the Cross, we shall labor. In the ruins of Christendom, we shall live. Christus vincit. Christus regnat. Christus imperat.

Novena to Santo Stefano

Santo Stefano, ora pro nobis

Pray novena for nine consecutive days, December 17th to December 25th (Feast celebrated on December 26th)

O glorious St. Stephen, first Martyr for the Faith, filled with compassion for those who invoke you, with love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of my troubles. I kneel at your feet and humbly beg you to take my present need under your special protection (Mention your request here…) Vouchsafe to recommend it to our Lord Jesus. Cease not to intercede for me until my request is granted. Above all, obtain for me the grace to one day meet God face to face, and with you and Mary and all the angels and saints praise Him through all eternity. O most powerful Saint Stephen, Deacon and martyr, do not let me lose my soul, but obtain for me the grace of winning my way to heaven, forever and ever. Saint Stephen, pray for us. 

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be

* The accompanying photo was taken at Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary and Saint Stephen's Church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Evviva Santo Stefano! 

Feast of Sant’Adelaide di Borgogna

Sant'Adelaide Imperatrice, ora pro nobis

December 16th is the Feast of Sant’Adelaide di Borgogna, Wife, Mother, Foundress, Queen and Holy Roman Empress. Patron saint of abuse victims, brides, princesses, exiles, parents of large families, prisoners, step-parents and widows, she is also invoked against in-law problems and for second marriages. 

In celebration, we’re posting a Prayer to St. Adelaide of Burgundy. The accompanying photo comes courtesy of Father Eugene Carrella. The holy card is part of Father Carrella’s impressive collection of religious artifacts. Evviva Sant’Adelaide di Borgogna!

Prayer to St. Adelaide of Burgundy

Lord God, you blessed Adelaide of Burgundy with gifts of grace as wife and mother, empress and foundress, so that she might spend her life in service to your people. Through her example and prayers, may we keep the faith when we have to endure difficult situations, and be able to fulfill our duties with generosity in spite of them. Through Christ Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit. Amen.