Church #20 - Shrine of the Little Flower, Burrillville

This is a shrine to St. Therese of Lisieux, who you definitely need to read if you haven't already. It's the first and oldest shrine to her in the world. It's in a rural part of Rhode Island, in the Northwest part of the state. In hilariously Rhode Island fashion, it seems to be in three places at once - Burrillville (via the diocese's web site), Nasonville (via the main web page), and Harrisville (GPS directions).

The first thing you see outside when you park is a structure with a bunch of benches and the traditional set of 28 steps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scala_Sancta), which I declined to do this time around when I visited. The steps are actually a little building with a bunch of statues and artwork inside, something I completely missed the first time I was here:

All in all, I found the shrine area to be almost overwhelming, with the amount of statues and devotions that are spread out everywhere. Not overwhelming in a bad way, but I definitely need to come back here and spend a lot more time getting a thorough look at everything.

Stations of the cross

You might not be able to see it well, but there's a huge circle of statues of saints.

The 28 steps

Another highlight is a huge outdoor rosary featuring all 20 mysteries.

Looks like the Agony in the Garden got sacrificed so that people can walk through more easily.

The beginning of the rosary.

There's also an outdoor church. It has a tabernacle, but I didn't see any kind of sanctuary light, so I couldn't tell if the Eucharist was there or not. Is it OK to leave the Eucharist in a tabernacle outside? It feels like the answer is no.

Next to the church area is a huge field, featuring still more random devotional stuff scattered around.

I'm assuming this is Fatima?

I wonder what this was?

More than anything else, I thought this looked like a grave. Kind of creepy.

There's a building that has a museum and gift shop inside it. I went into the building and up a set of stairs, looked around, and realized that by all appearances I was in the middle of someone's house. Maybe it's a convent or something like that? I fled before anyone noticed or heard me. The place was so quiet and still that I was then too scared to ring the bell for the gift shop, plus I felt like I would be bothering someone if I did.

I went in the door on the right. Should have tried the left one first.

I originally came to Mass here for a friend of mine's wedding. The shrine has meant a lot to her and her husband during their relationship, and this is where he proposed to her. The church is small, but nice. It's very bright and pleasant inside. The shrine doubles as a normal parish dedicated to St. Therese.

I'm not sure if I've seen a JP2 statue like this before, but I'm sure a lot more of them will be popping up. I love that these two are on either side of the divine mercy image.

Two very cool murals in the back