After 72 years of near continuous use, St. John Vianney Chapel on Third and Detroit Streets in Los Angeles has closed. The last Mass in the chapel was celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Edward Clark on Feb. 8. The following day the work of dismantling the chapel began.

St. John Vianney opened in 1927 as the chapel of the Los Angeles College seminary, educating candidates for the priesthood during four years of high school and the first two years of college. In 1954, with the opening of Our Lady Queen of the Angels Seminary adjacent to Mission San Fernando, Los Angeles College was reopened as St. John Vianney High School, later renamed in memory of philanthropist Daniel Murphy. The high school was closed in 2008.

The Mass was attended by approximately 40 Daniel Murphy High School alumni and recent students and some 200 other worshipers, including the high school's last principal, Sharon Dandorf. As part of the closing liturgy, alumni and students chanted their alma mater for one last time.

Concelebrating the Mass with Bishop Clark were Father Earl Walker, pastor emeritus of Cathedral Chapel Parish and an alumnus of Los Angeles College; San Pedro Auxiliary Bishop Alex Salazar, a Daniel Murphy High alumnus; Dominican Father Vincent Lopez, a former principal; and Father Truc Nguyen, current pastor of Cathedral Chapel Church, the home parish for St. John Vianney Chapel.

For a number of years, the chapel has been the place of Sunday worship for many parishioners from Cathedral Chapel. For them, especially, the closing of the chapel was a momentous occasion. At the conclusion of the Mass and prior to the ritual of closing the building, a number of parishioners and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet were honored for their dedication to the chapel. Additionally, the Dominican Fathers were presented with the chapel's processional cross for use in their newly established mission church in Mexicali.

In his sermon, with reference to the Scripture readings of the Sunday, Bishop Clark compared the worshipping community of St. John Vianney Chapel to the biblical figure of Job.

"Job lost his home and he lost his family, but he did not lose his faith," the bishop noted. "Although this is our last celebration as a family in this church building, we will continue to hear God's Word and to share together the Eucharist as a people of faith. United in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, we are the Body of Christ, we are His Church, and who we are and what we believe cannot be limited by bricks and mortar."

After Communion, following the "Ritual for Closing a Church," the ciborium containing the Eucharist remained on the altar and the doors of the tabernacle were left open. Prayers of gratitude were recited for the sacraments, liturgies, graduations and school Masses celebrated in the chapel during its many years of ministry. Finally, the Blessed Sacrament was carried out of the church and, in a final gesture of farewell, the main doors of the chapel were closed and locked.