Pope approves miracle attributed to American nun

Vatican Radio ^ | December 18, 2013

[NYer]

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has approved the attribution a miraculous healing to the intercession of a young American nun, opening the way to her beatification. Born and raised in New Jersey, Miriam Teresa Demjanovich (1901-1927) entered the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth in 1926 and died one year later, taking her religious vows one month before her death.
The miracle that opens the way for the beatification of Miriam Teresa Demjanovich involves the restoration of perfect vision to a boy who had gone legally blind because of macular degeneration.
Silvia Correale, the postulator for Sr Teresa’s cause in Rome, said : “All ophthalmologists know that this condition cannot be totally healed. It can be stopped from advancing, but it cannot be fully cured.” The decision as to the miraculous nature of this healing was unanimous by all committees, she added.

Msgr Giampaolo Rizzotti of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints added that the miracle took place in 1964. The date of the beatification, he said, now depends upon the bishop of the diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, which first opened the cause, to contact the Vatican and establish a date.

Born in 1901, Sr Teresa was baptized and confirmed in the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic rite of the Church and raised in an Eastern Catholic household. She was the youngest of seven children, whose parents immigrated from Eastern Slovakia.

Sr Teresa’s vocation story demonstrates her perseverance in faith. Wanting to enter religious life upon her high school graduation, she postponed her entry to care for her ailing mother. After her mother’s death and upon her family’s urging, she began her studies in literature at the at Convent Station, New Jersey, where she met the congregation she would later join.

But first, in 1924, she decided to test her initial desire to join the Carmelites. She visited the community but was turned away due to health issues. She finally discerned a vocation to the Sisters of Charity and entered on 11 February 1925, soon after her father’s death.

As a postulant and novice, she continued to teach, all the while living a deep spiritual life. In June 1926, her spiritual director asked her to write the conferences for the novitiate. She wrote 26 conferences which, after her death, were published in a book, titled Greater Perfection.

Six months later, in January 1927, she fell gravely ill and was admitted to the hospital. She made religious profession in articulo mortis (in danger of death) on 2 April 1927. On 6 May, she was operated for appendicitis and died two days later.

Correale says Sr Teresa is considered to be a mystic. She developed a profound Trinitarian spirituality and shared with others the importance of entering into deep communion with the Trinitarian God.

[NYer]

Silvia Correale, the postulator for Sr Teresa’s cause in Rome, said : “All ophthalmologists know that this condition cannot be totally healed. It can be stopped from advancing, but it cannot be fully cured.” The decision as to the miraculous nature of this healing was unanimous by all committees, she added.

Absolutely true!

[2ndDivisionVet]

Yep. Mrs. 2ndDivisionVet has been an optician/manager for nearly 30 years. She agrees.

[Salvation]

So we will have a Blessed Teresa Demjanovich in the U.A. Wow!

[Cicero]

Good news.

[.45 Long Colt]

Ridiculous

[jjotto]

Yeah, but maybe the Pope was mistranslated or misunderstood.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“opening the way to her beatification”

If she wasn’t a saint when she died, she won’t become one now, no matter how many intercessions are attributed to her.

Let’s hope she was a true believer in Christ before death.

[Lou Budvis]

What is ridiculous is that someone who says that they are a Christian has the name of a weapon as a screen-name.

[.45 Long Colt]

My grandfather and I used to hunt deer with .45 Colt. Plus, all the great names like Budvis were taken.

[.45 Long Colt]

Rather than being snarky I should have asked why you are hanging around a conservative website if you are opposed to the Second Amendment and believe Christians shouldn’t be firearm enthusiasts. In addition to enjoying various shooting sports, I take my God-given responsibility to protect my family seriously. I am a peace-loving man and I pray I am never in such a situation, but if I must employ lethal force to protect my wife and children so be it.

Maybe guns are anti-Catholic, I wouldn’t know about that. I do know, however, they are not anti-Christian.

[metmom]

[Revolting cat!]

This is that wonderful moment when the haters of the Catholic Church sing Kumbaya with the atheists and offer “scientific” explanations!

[GonzoII]

Praise God!

[stonehouse01]

“...If she wasn’t a saint when she died she won’t become one now...”

This is true. Everyone who makes it to heaven is a saint. Beatified saints are recognized so their lives as extraordinary followers of Christ can inspire us.

Obviously she was a true believer in Christ.

[FourtySeven]

What, pray tell, is “rediculous” about this article? That a boy got cured of macular degeneration or that God performed yet another miraculous healing today?

[.45 Long Colt]

It’s ridiculous that you put “rediculous” in quotes as if I misspelled the word.

It’s also ridiculous that anyone believes a long dead nun healed anyone. God works miracles. Dead nuns don’t.

It’s ridiculous that so many will believe that silly claim, and a host of others, while denying the plain truths of Scripture.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Obviously she was a true believer in Christ.”

Lots of non-believers do good things. Salvation comes from entrusting oneself totally in faith to Christ’s sacrifice. Did she? We can hope so.

[metmom]

Matthew 7:22-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Miracles attributed to someone is no guarantee that they were even a believer.