Legacy_Fall 2019_FINAL.e$S_Layout 1 11/15/19 2:11 PM Page 18
students
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, SC by Molly McKenna | ’21
Editor’s Note: Molly wrote this piece for an essay contest run by the Seton Hall University Catholic Studies Department, which asked, "How does a North American saint inspire you to live your faith today?" Molly went on to claim first-runner up in the highly selective contest. She reports, “I stumbled upon Blessed Miriam Theresa, a Sister of Charity. Miriam Therese grew to mean as much to me as she did to the sisters.” She also adds a special thanks to Mrs. Burek, who lent her a copy of Greater Perfection.
glancing up at my family tree or down at my uniform shirt. Regardless, there was something about her which struck a chord with me. This was a child of immigrants, like my grandmother, a girl with six older siblings, like my mother, who taught at the very school which I now attend and who studied the very subject which I wish to pursue to the highest degree I can. She had mousy brown hair, rounded spectacles, and an intelligent gaze which I resolved myself to enter this contest thinking it would be quick—just skim seemed to surpass the limits of the screen. through a Wikipedia page and bang out a There was not much information about few hundred words. It wouldn’t be hard for me to pick a saint, for my mother and all six of her siblings were named for saints, and I even go to a school named for a saint. all I had to do was throw a proverbial dart and choose one. I cast a glance at the list of saints pro- her on the internet, but that wasn’t a hurvided to us. The obvious choice would dle I hadn’t jumped before. I decided to have been Elizabeth ann Seton, but I’ve search for her book, and that morning I always been one for making things more stepped off the train determined to vendifficult than they need to be. I landed on ture into my school’s library and inquire Blessed Sister Miriam Teresa—a choice about it. as the train pulled out of the which contradicted my original resolution, station and the white bell tower came into for she was not a saint I could name by view over the trees, the early morning sun glinting off the golden cross atop it, I
“
found myself wondering what Miriam Teresa thought the first time she saw that tower, a full century ago now. as it happened, my principal had a copy of the book in her office and was willing to lend it to me. The book advertises itself on the cover as “a means of achieving union with God through prayer,” and I think that in and of itself describes why Miriam Teresa speaks to me. She did something so seemingly simple, and yet here I am a century later, seeing her name with “blessed sister” attached to it. It in-
To find the perfect life, you have only
18
LEGACY Magazine | Fall 2019
to keep the ways of the Lord.
”
- Sister Miriam Teresa spires me that “greater perfection,” as she calls it, really is attainable. She asserted that “to find this perfect life, you have only to keep the ways of the lord,” and never has something encouraged me to practice my faith more. Sometimes the deeds of saints seem so monumental as to make your actions (continued on page 16)
