National Shrine of Saint Therese, Darien

In the suburb of Darien, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, stands one of the few national shrines in the United States dedicated to Saint Therese of Lisieux, the French Carmelite nun who died in eighteen ninety-seven and was canonized in nineteen twenty-five. The shrine began in Chicago in nineteen twenty-three, and after a fire destroyed its home church in nineteen seventy-five, the Discalced Carmelite friars rebuilt it in Darien, dedicating the new shrine building in nineteen eighty-seven. Therese, sometimes called the Little Flower, became one of the most widely venerated Catholic saints of the twentieth century, celebrated for her doctrine of spiritual simplicity.

The shrine includes a museum of Theresian relics and a chapel that draws pilgrims from across the Midwest. For anyone driving the I-Fifty-Five corridor between Chicago and Joliet, the shrine complex marks the point where the city finally lets go and the Illinois plain begins.