Detroit — The National Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak had its place as a significant Catholic historical site marked last month with a plaque installed by Sancho Caravan 261 of the International Order of Alhambra.

The Alhambras, a fraternal society for Catholic men, are best known for their work with the developmentally disabled, but the society also designates and places plaques at Catholic historical sites, as it did last year on the campus of Orchard Lake Schools.

When devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux, called “the Little Flower,” began to catch on in the 1920s, a shrine was established inside the old SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral on Adelaide Street at John R.

But the shrine attracted so many people that the crowds interfered with the normal operation of the cathedral. In 1926, a free-standing Chapel of the Little Flower was built on Parsons Street, west of Woodward, but it, too, proved to be too small.

So the young Canadian priest who had been brought in to run the chapel, Fr. Charles Coughlin, decided an even larger structure was needed, with the result that today’s shrine was built at Woodward Avenue and 12 Mile Road. The chapel that had been built on Parsons Street eventually became St. Patrick Church.

The Shrine of the Little Flower gained a national reputation during the 1930s because of Fr. Coughlin’s radio broadcasts.

During the later ’30s, however, Fr. Coughlin’s populism and isolationism became increasingly controversial.

Although that chapter in the shrine’s history was to end, the National Shrine of the Little Flower continued to be a place where many came to develop a deeper spirituality, following “the Little Way” of the gentle saint for which it was named.