Second Week of Lent: Coming Down From the Mountaintop
 Bolivia, located in central South America just west of Brazil, is about three times the size of Montana. It is the world's largest producer of tin and is the second largest source of natural gas in Latin America. At the same time, 40 percent of Bolivians work in agriculture. Small-scale farmers, such as Victoria Velasquez and her husband, face the challenges of deforestation, degradation of natural resources and unpredictable periods of drought and floods. CRS helped the Velasquez family learn new agricultural techniques after they moved from their poorly producing mountain village to a warmer location.
Pray
Mountains are the Bible's prime real estate for encounters with God. Moses, Elijah, Jesus—all met God on mountaintops. So it's not surprising that they are all together on the mountain in Luke's gospel, though it does throw Jesus' followers for a loop. In the transfiguration Jesus stands glorified between the two figures who represent the law of God and the word of God. They are discussing what awaits Jesus down the mountain: a new exodus; a new sort of journey from death into life; a new way of delivering God's people. And the cross.
This is one of the best things about God's holy ones: they do not stay on the mountaintop in their privileged conversation with God. They always return to the ones who wait below, to the people making their gold calves or suffering persecution or waiting for their sick children to be healed. If the path of discipleship involves following Jesus up the mountain to the place where God speaks, it is also the way of the disciple to follow Jesus down the mountain, to those who wait below and ultimately to the cross and the new life that lies beyond it.
In your prayer this week, ask God where you are being sent. Who awaits you at the foot of your mountain? How are you being challenged to listen to Jesus this week, as you follow him to the cross?
Fast
As you plan your week, make some time to pray as the prophets did. Set aside everything—time, physical comfort, food—to listen carefully to what God is saying to you. You might consider skipping a meal and spending the time by yourself in prayer. While a mountaintop might not be handy, a chapel, winter path or bedroom might be the place to escape distractions. Let the inevitable complaint of your stomach remind you of your reliance on God for your daily bread. Let it put you in solidarity with all who experience hunger, whether if be for food, for justice or for a brighter future.
Learn
When Victoria Velasquez and her husband descended from their mountain home, a new life awaited them. In the community where they settled, warmer days meant that they could grow a wider variety and abundance of crops. But life down the mountain was unfamiliar. They had difficulty getting their new farm started until they joined a local agricultural program run by CRS. There, Victoria and her husband learned about the local growing cycles and discovered the types of seeds that would produce the best crops. Irrigation techniques and natural pest control helped them to steward the land that sustained them. Now Victoria's family runs a successful farm that provides fruit for the town's school breakfast program. Leaving the mountain meant taking a risk and losing a long-familiar life. But it also meant new opportunity and a future for their children, who now attend school and no longer go without basic needs.
Part of CRS' work in Victoria Velasquez's community reflects the call of Catholic social teaching to care for God's creation. Helping Bolivian famers to yield crops that are more productive includes providing an understanding of how to farm in a way that sustains the land. Protecting the environment reflects respect for the goodness of nature, a gift God has given.
Give
In Bolivia, 40 percent of the population works in agriculture. This week, place 40 cents a day in your Rice Bowl in solidarity with the Bolivians who earn their living from the land, and in turn, seek to steward it.
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