Los Angeles Catholic Girls High School - Crozier Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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3jaa=- --E CRO: -HiVy: i - e li THEANE XXVII

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ANITA THEVENOT A nuKKet of common sense. IRENE THOM Just the (luiet kind whose nature never vai ' ies. VIRGINIA WILLIAMS Hope links her to the future. ISABEL WESTCOTT ■ None lives that can deny her charm. ■V XXVI

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SAINT VIBIANA Although Httle is known of her life, can we not picture the stainless existence of this girl saint, who, in the third century, made the supreme sacrifice for her dear Savior? Just forget the rush and the whirl, the sin and wickedness, the speed-mad life of our God-forgetting age, and let me take you back to the days of the early Christians; to the reign of the mighty Diocletian, that pagan emperor of the Eternal City, whose dia- bolical persecutions could not weaken the ranks of Christ ' s loyal followers. I shall conduct you down one of the wide roads of Rome to a small villa, just outside the city. Here, in a secluded garden, the mother of little Vibiana told her the story of the sweet Christ Child. Here, with all the love and understanding of a pious Christian mother, she heard her treas- ured daughter whisper her longing for her Divine Master. So Vibiana ' s mother, putting aside all thoughts of self, encouraged the girl in her desires, and happily dedicated her, in the purity and innocence of her girlhood, to the Loved One. Then the burly Roman soldiers, breaking into the home, snatched the child from the protecting arms of her mother and dragged her before the prefect. Vibiana heroically refused to burn incense to the pagan gods, and her death sentence was passed ! Yet, there was no paling of her fea- tures, no trembling, no fear in her heart, for the sti ' ength of the Wine of virgins was within her. Even when this tender girl was flung into the Coliseum to be jeered at by the countless hundreds of pagans, and to be slain by a brutal executioner, her dauntless courage and her love of God did not leave her. Now we take up facts and we recall how the body of the saint was found. Inthe month of December, 1853, Pope Pius IX, of most glorious memory, oixlered excavations to be made in certain unexplored portions of the catacombs of St. Sixtus, on the Appian Way in Rome. Ground was first broken at a point about a mile from the gate of St. Sebastian. Fin- ally an entrance was made into one of the many tunnels of the under- ground city of the dead. There were rows and rows of monuments of Christian antiquity, but they were so corroded by the hand of time that they necessitated the most careful of handling. On penetrating farther into the passage, the explorers came upon a tomb closed by a marble slab, bearing a Latin inscription, which, translated into English, reads as follows: To the innocent and pure soul of Vibiana. The inscription ended with a garland of palm branches roughly chiseled on the stone. The tomb was carefully and reverently opened. Within was found the body of a young girl, near the head of which was a crystal vase of dried blood, which still preserved a rosy hue, and which, with the chiseled palm branch, proved that the grave was that of a Christian martyr. The discovery was an occasion of the most enthusiastic devotion in Rome. Thousands flocked to honor the remains of the new saint, as they called her. A number of bishops and heads of religious orders made strenuous but unsuccessful efl ' orts to obtain possession of the sacred treas- ure for their churches or cathedrals. The newly consecrated bishop, Thaddeus Amat, .sought and won the prize on the condition that he erect a cathedral in Los Angeles. The body was placed in a vessel bound for California. The passage across the Atlantic around Caix; Horn was stormy and dangerous, but the calm waters of the Pacific seemed to recognize how precious was the treasure borne upon its gentle waves, for the rest of the voyage along the coast of the two Americas was uneventful. The ship arrived in San XXVIll