A fire destroyed St. Clara's Carmelite Church on Chicago's south side in 1975, and with it the building that housed the National Shrine of St. Thérèse. Most of the relics and personal effects of St. Thérèse of Lisieux kept there survived. They were carried 34 km southwest to the Carmelite campus at Aylesford, in Darien, and a new shrine was built around them.
The campus lies along Bailey Road, at the southern edge of the town. Two buildings anchor it. The shrine church, dedicated in 2018, holds smaller prayer stations for other Carmelite saints around its worship space; the museum sits seventy-nine metres south of it, with first- and second-class relics, historical photographs and paintings, and a full-size replica of the convent cell Thérèse Martin occupied at Lisieux. On the ground between them lie a meditation garden with a pond and a prayer gazebo, the Stations of the Cross, and walking paths through statue gardens and grottos.
Darien is a separately incorporated municipality in DuPage County, and the shrine belongs to the Diocese of Joliet — the devotion began in the Archdiocese of Chicago and moved out of it. The Society of the Little Flower, the Carmelite organisation founded in Chicago in 1923 to spread devotion to St. Thérèse, runs the shrine from an office on the same stretch of road.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
Novena services in honour of Thérèse Martin began at St. Cyril's Church in Chicago in 1912, by the Society's own account of its origins. She was canonized in 1925. Fr. Albert Dolan, O.Carm., had founded the Society of the Little Flower in Chicago two years before that, in 1923, to carry the devotion further, and the crowds outgrew St. Cyril's. The novena moved to the larger St. Clara's Carmelite Church on the city's south side, and the shrine went with it.
The Carmelites of the Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary had bought land in Darien in 1959 — a property once owned by the congressman Martin B. Madden — and named the campus Aylesford, after the order's old English house in Kent. The 1975 fire closed the Chicago chapter. The rescued relics and effects were taken out to Aylesford, and a bequest from a Lay Carmelite woman, unnamed in the Society's account, paid for a building to hold them.
That shrine was dedicated on November 1, 1987. When the relics of St. Thérèse toured North America in 1999 and 2000, the crowds at Darien were large enough that the Carmelites decided to double the shrine's capacity, and the enlarged building was blessed in February 2002. The present shrine, designed by Charles Vincent George Architects, was dedicated on October 1, 2018 — her feast day — at three times the size of the 1987 chapel.
The museum was renovated across 2014 and 2015. The Shrine describes its holdings as the largest and most complete collection of objects belonging to St. Thérèse outside Lisieux, and describes the carved wooden cycle of her life on display there as the largest wood carving of a religious nature in the United States. Both are the Shrine's own claims.
The devotion the campus exists for is the "little way" Thérèse set out in her autobiography: holiness reached through small acts done with love, rather than through great works. Pope St. John Paul II named her a Doctor of the Church in 1997. The Society of the Little Flower states its mission in her own terms — to teach that little way of spiritual childhood, and to help make God known and loved to the ends of the earth.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Darien, Illinois
National Shrine of St. Thérèse
The shrine church was dedicated on October 1, 2018, three times the size of the chapel it replaced. Smaller prayer stations for Carmelite saints ring the main worship space, and one of them holds a devotional station of the Infant Jesus of Prague — a Carmelite devotion, and a different thing from the national shrine of that name in Prague, Oklahoma. A relic of St. Thérèse is brought out for veneration on her feast.
National Shrine Museum of St. Thérèse
Seventy-nine metres south of the shrine church, on the same campus and with an address of its own, the museum holds the collection the 1975 fire spared: first- and second-class relics, historical photographs and paintings, a large stained-glass window of the soul's ascent, and a full-size replica of the convent cell at Lisieux. A carved wooden cycle of her life runs along one wall. The Carmelite Meditation Garden, its prayer gazebo, and the Stations of the Cross ringing the pond occupy the ground between the two buildings.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux — October 1
The shrine's patronal feast and its principal pilgrimage day. Masses run through the day, each one with veneration of a relic of St. Thérèse and a blessing of roses, the flower that carries her name. A talk in the museum on her life falls between them. A nine-day novena leads into the feast, and pilgrims send prayer intentions to be remembered at the feast-day Masses.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel — July 16
The patronal feast of the Carmelite order, kept at Darien with a procession that sets out from the Meditation Garden and ends at the shrine church for the feast-day Mass, which is livestreamed for those who cannot travel.
Walk with Jesus — the Friday before Holy Week
The Stations of the Cross prayed outdoors in the Meditation Garden during Lent, followed by Mass.
Christmas at the Crib — early December
A family gathering on the campus with storytelling about the Nativity.
🛏️ Where to Stay
WoodSpring Suites Chicago Darien (hotel) — The closest lodging to the campus, roughly 0.7 km east along North Frontage Road. Rooms are studio-style with kitchenettes, suited to longer stays. Website
Extended Stay America Select Suites – Chicago – Darien (hotel) — Inside Darien as well, about 2.7 km southwest of the campus, a mid-tier alternative in the same style. Website
Hampton Inn & Suites Chicago-Burr Ridge ⭐⭐⭐ — The nearest conventional full-service hotel, about 5.6 km northeast in Burr Ridge. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
🚗 Getting There
By Air: Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) is the nearer of the two Chicago airports, approximately 19.5 km east-northeast of the campus. O'Hare International Airport (ORD) is approximately 27.9 km north-northeast. A car or rideshare is the most direct connection from either.
By Train: Metra's BNSF Line between Chicago Union Station and Aurora is the nearest commuter rail. The City of Darien names the Main Street, Belmont Avenue and Fairview Avenue stations in neighbouring Downers Grove as the closest boarding points.
By Bus: Pace suburban routes 665 and 715 serve Darien. Route 665 connects to the Metra station in Westmont; route 715 runs by way of Argonne National Laboratory, Yorktown Mall and the College of DuPage to Glen Ellyn.
By Car: The campus sits where Bailey Road meets North Frontage Road, just off exit 273B of Interstate 55, the Stevenson Expressway. Parking for the Meditation Garden is at 8419 Bailey Road.
📚 Further Reading
Books:
St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Story of a Soul: Study Edition — The autobiography that set out the "little way," in an edition with chapter introductions and reflections. The foundational text for a visit to a shrine built around her relics.
Marion Amberg. Monuments, Marvels, and Miracles: A Traveler's Guide to Catholic America — The standard English-language travel guide to Catholic sites across the United States, useful for placing Darien in a wider American pilgrimage route.
🎥 Recommended Videos
National Shrine of St. Therese — A short filmed introduction to the shrine and its grounds, produced by Discover DuPage, the county's tourism bureau.
St. Therese Cell Dedication — The Society of the Little Flower's own record of the dedication of the replica convent cell on the campus.
VLOG: A visit to the National Shrine of St. Therese of Lisieux in Darien, IL — A pilgrim's unhurried walk through the grounds and the museum.
🔗 Useful Links
National Shrine and Museum of St. Thérèse — Official site of the shrine and of the Society of the Little Flower.
Carmelites — National Shrine of St. Therese — The listing for the shrine from the Carmelite Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary.
Diocese of Joliet — The diocese in which Darien lies.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Berwyn, Illinois (20 km northeast) — St. Odilo's parish, named for the abbot of Cluny who gave the Church All Souls' Day, with a side altar Cardinal Mundelein made a shrine to the poor souls.
Chicago (34 km east-northeast) — The city the Little Flower devotion came from, and the densest Catholic pilgrimage cluster in the Midwest: national shrines to Sts. Jude, Anne, Peregrine, Cabrini and Kolbe.
Holy Hill (170 km north) — The Carmelite basilica and Marian shrine on the Kettle Moraine in Wisconsin, run by the same order.
Peoria (177 km southwest) — The cathedral where Venerable Fulton J. Sheen was an altar boy and was ordained, and where his tomb lies.
Saint Mary-of-the-Woods (251 km south) — The Indiana motherhouse of the Sisters of Providence, with the National Shrine of Our Lady of Providence and the tomb of St. Mother Theodore Guérin.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"If the Church was a body composed of different members, it couldn't lack the noblest of all; it must have a Heart, and a Heart burning with love."
— St. Thérèse of Lisieux, quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 826
