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Show DESERT PRIEST, Cont. from pg. 10 During the months that followed, he spent as much time as possible trying to learn the Navajo language with the help of Dr. Gladys Reichard , Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College, who had wri tten a Navajo grammar and claimed to have mastered the language. Although he failed to grasp many of the words and paradigms, he did - at Prof. Reichard's insistence - learn the correct pronunciation of the difficult sounds in the Navajo language, and this was to serve him well in the future. In June, 1943, his resignation as rector of St. Saviour's became effective. Not long afte rward , he set out - with the hearty blessing of the Rt. Rev. Arthur Moulton , Bishop of Utah - to set up a mission in an uninhabited area of the Navajo Indian Reservation. With him were five voluntee rs, most of whom he had met only by mail or telephone until they joined the strange little safa ri at pre-arranged locations along the way. Traveling by car and truck , with rationed gasoli ne and rationed tires, was not simple during those days of World War II. The 35 m.p]l. speed limit was in force everywhere, and ea ch time a tire blew, it meant an interview with the local ration board to obtain ano ther retread, and another delay in the trip. Finding camp si tes, pitching ten ts , taking them down, and cooking meals - all of these slowed them down, so th at it took almost two full weeks to complete the journey. But suddenly , there they were in Cow Canyon , just north of Bluff, Utah. Brother Michael, a Franciscan friar who had volunteered to help get the mission started, jumped from his car and cried, "My God in heaven , Father, why didn't you tell us! This is beautiful! I never saw such country. How d id you let us imagine we were going into a deadly Sahara Desert?" In less than an hour, they were pitching their tents near an old irrigation ditch and settling down to the job of building, of putting down roots, of convincing the Navajos they had come to their land to stay. Quickly , Fr. Liebler learned that one of the first questions asked of him was , "Where are you go ing?" And his reply, in halting Navajo, was, " I am not goin g. I sit here." 11 The resul t was usually dismaying. The Indians would Fr. Liebler in his younger days. begin to jabber in delight at meeting a white man who knew something of their language. But his vocabulary was still limi ted, so his conversations with his visitors were necessarily brief. He learned later that they would ask one another, "What sort of white man is this that talks like a Navajo but only says a few words, and then won't say anything more?" This then was the beginning of what finally became St. Christopher's Mission to the Navajo, where Fr. Liebler - known to many as "The Desert Priest" - spent 23 years of his life, proving to his Indian friends he meant it when he told them, "'I am not going. I sit here." But he did not sit alone. Willing hearts and hands came to help, some for only brief periods of time, and some permanently. One of these was Brother J uniper, another Franciscan friar who had been assigned to leave the Little Portion Friary at Mount Sinai, N.Y. , and go to Utah to help Fr. Liebler "complete the building" of St. Christopher's Mission. When he left in late 1943, Father Joseph had told him the work wo uld take at least a year. He has now been with Fr. Liebler fo r thirty-three years because, in his own words, "Father never stopped building." First, of course, the little group planted a garden to make sure there would be food on the table. They were, after all , living on extremely limited funds, and had not requested financial help from the Bishop of Utah. So it was important for them to learn to live off the land. Sho rtly after their arr ival, they set up a portable altar, and the six strangers in a foreign land gathered for Holy Communion that first Sunday morning with great enthusiasm. : Later they realized they had been observed throughout the se rvice by two small Navajo children sitting astride a burro sta ndin g atop the canyon wall just north of their campsite. The following Sunday, Fr. Liebler was distracted by sounds of whispering behind him. After the se rvice , he investigated and discovered there had been an embryo congregation - an entire Navajo family hiding behind the sagebrush , watching and listening. At Fr. Liebler's invitation, they came out of hiding and joined the mission group for "coffee hour." This was the smal\ beginning. Never again was there a Sunday morning worship service without Navajos in attendance. The first structure to be erected at the site was an A Navajo fam ily at the Retreat Center. THE CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE, JANUARY, 1977 |