Upon entering the Nazareth Novitiate of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, Blessed Miriam Teresa’s spiritual director was a Benedictine Father. He described her obedience to him as “heroic.” It was him who instructed her to write the “series of instructions” that continued the conferences he gave to the Sisters. She was not instructed on what topics to write.
These instructions were not, at the time, credited as written by BMT. According to her biography An American Teresa, “The sisters noted the change in style,” (as opposed to Father’s style) “and remarked the difference.” On the day of BMT’s funeral, the spiritual director posted a note “The conferences which I have been giving to the Sisters were written by Sister Miriam Teresa.”
Those writings were posthumously compiled into the book Greater Perfection by BMT’s brother Monsignor Demjanovich, published first in November 1928.
Happy Feast of St Benedict 2026. Saint Benedict and BMT’s Benedictine spiritual director Father Benedict Bradley, pray to God for us
You can listen to an audiobook of Greater Perfection here, and can also listen to it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
On May 8th, 2026 in Bayonne NJ, we will be celebrating BMT’s feast day weekend! This is the 99th year since BMT’s ascent into the “fullness of life in Heaven where she intercedes for us.”
At the March 18, 2026 Bayonne City Council meeting, the Council adopted a resolution naming her feast day May 8th every year “Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjaonvich, S.J. day” in the city! Thank you to Chairman LaPelusa and the Honorable City Council for giving her this great honor.
You can view my comments in support of the resolution at 36:26 in this video:
Here is a pdf of the full text of the resolution:
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On her feast day Friday May 8th, 2026, her namesake Roman Catholic parish, Blessed Miriam Teresa Parish in Downtown Bayonne, they’ll be having two events.
The 9am Mass Intention will be “For a miracle leading to the canon- ization of BMT.” Then at 6pm, they will be having a special Mass for BMT where they will celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, with Archdiocese of Newark Bishop Emeritus Gregory Studerus presiding.
On Saturday May 9th, 2026, her home Byzantine Catholic parish, Saint John the Baptist Byzantine Church on 26th street in Bayonne, Father Bertha will be celebrating her feast day at 1:30pm with a Moleben prayer service, which is an intercessory prayer for health and blessings invoking Blessed Miriam Teresa’s intercession to God for healing, followed by veneration of Blessed Miriam Teresa’s Relics and anointing with Holy Oil (the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.) Then at 3pm they will be having Diving Liturgy and prayers for her canonization.
I am so happy that BMT prays for us in Bayonne. If you were to attend both the Friday feast day mass at 6pm at BMT Parish, and the Saturday Moleben at 1:30pm at St John’s Byzantine, you’d get the opportunity to observe & participate in most of the Sacraments of our Holy Mother Church: Baptism, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, Eucharist, and both churches offer Confessions on that Saturday as well, to round it all out. Plus, you’d get to participate in “both lungs” of the Catholic church, the Western & Eastern Catholic churches. Glory to Jesus Christ!
Thank you so much to Father Bertha at her Byzantine Parish and Father Philip at her namesake Roman Parish for planning these opportunities for us to pray and participate in the fullness of both lungs of the Catholic Church.
Here is the bulletin from BMT Parish for her feast day, isn’t this nice?!
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Here is the text of the comments I made to Bayonne City Council in support of the BMT resolution:
Before the Demjanovich family moved to NYC in May 1884 – and soon after to Bayonne, New Jersey USA, they lived in Barjedov (which, in her official biography is mentioned in the town’s German name “Bartfelt,” and is misspelled also in the book as “Baridov”,) a town in what was at the time Austria-Hungary, now Slovakia. That town is located in northeastern Slovakia, near the border with Poland.
The yellow marking is the location of the Demjanovich family’s original European home.
Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich was born “Teresa Demjanovich” in Bayonne, NJ USA on March 26, 1901. I always wondered how her birth name, Teresa, connected to Miriam Teresa, the name she took when she was received into the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity.
Her biography, An American Teresa, explains exactly:
Miriam was chosen for Mary, the Mother of God. The book specifically says: “Miriam was for Mary, her Beloved’s Mother.”
Teresa was chosen for two reasons: her devotion to Saint Teresa of Avila, and for Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
Her birth name, also Teresa, was chosen by her parents after BMT’s Uncle’s wife (aka Aunt) who was baptized “Teresa” and was BMT’s godmother.
BMT “felt from an early age” that Saint Teresa of Avila had “taken [BMT] to herself.”
Another super interesting thing: BMT took those names on May 17, 1925, the same day of the Little Flower’s canonization as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. BMT was particularly happy that day because her brother Father Charles Demajonvich got to serve the Community Mass and BMT got to serve that mass in her capacity as a religious.
I just found that to be a fun bit of BMT trivia. + jp
This is the full text scanned straight from the printed version of the book! As a librarian myself, I want to thank University of California’s library for making this available.
In BMT’s biography “An American Teresa,” there is a quote: “Last night I was saying my Rosary here at the window seat when suddenly the grounds outside appeared bathed in a dazzling light and the Blessed Mother was clearly seen by me. The vision lasted several minutes after which the grounds gradually returned to their normal appearance.”
Later BMT said the beauty and sweetness of it all stayed in her mind continually. This happened around her Freshman year 1919 at St Elizabeth College.
BMT went on to become a Sister of Charity of St Elizabeth, the religious order that ran the college and where her bodily remains are now housed. BMT always had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother, with whom she was well acquainted as “The Most Holy Theotokos” due to her Byzantine Catholic upbringing. In fact according to her biography, BMT’s initial desire was to join the Carmelite Order of Sisters, whose devotion is specially ordered towards Our Blessed Mother. According to her biography, she wanted “to follow in the footsteps of the Little Flower and enter Carmel.”
Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjaonvich’s entrance into the religious life of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth was celebrated on February 11, 1925. This date was picked intentionally to fall on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and I wish to say happy feast day!
Fun to see masses for BMT’s feast day at churches outside of the Holy City of Bayonne. I embeded this to begin at the homily at 25:25. You can feel free to watch the whole thing, too! I used to attend Latin Mass at this church in Pequannock, NJ back in 2003.
This was recorded before the “B” in “BMT”! It is an EWTN interview with the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth from 2012.
Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, Sister of Charity, was an American Christian who breathed with "both lungs": a Roman Catholic sister who kept her Byzantine Catholic Rite heritage.
