Long Island's Hidden Shrine

By Carol Silva

You'd never know it by driving along the north LIE Service Road in Hauppauge. But every year, hundreds of Long Islanders turn right between Exits 57 and 56 and make their way up Roosevelt Boulevard to this little former summer bungalow. Today this bungalow is the St. Therese Shrine.

It's the bungalow where young mother Josephine Martello came to be healed in the 1940s. Jo did what so many did "in the old days." She was sick with some undiagnosed illness that robbed her of her energy and her weight. So she went out to the country - to heal in her Aunt's bungalow - in a neighborhood that used to be called Central Islip. That's when Long Island was "the country."

  Jo was emigrated from Italy to NY with her family when she was only 6. She was a devout Catholic, and as a child developed a special devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux. For 3 years she fought her illness in her aunt's bungalow. During those dark days she promise St. Therese to build a shrine to the saint if Jo was cured.

The former bungalow is tiny - with rows of chairs on both sides of a small center aisle. Inside what Joe named The Little Flower Shrine, there are statues of St. Therese and other saints, and a bowl where people in need put papers requesting special prayers requesting help with faith, finance, family, fertility or more.

There are copies of photos of St. Therese, taken by her own sister who became a nun with her in France. And there are benches and statues for contemplation outside.

An unusual stop off the north service road of the LIE.

Comments

[joe cioffi]

Carol,
i had no idea about this. I have a good friend who is very devoted to St Therese. I shall pass it along! Who knew!