Saturday the 22nd of August we gathered outside Church, ready to pick blueberries. We were slightly disappointed that so few of us had showed up: Karoline, Maria, Huy, me, my husband and dog. Where were the others?
Father Al packed his bag so we could celebrate Mass by the lake and we left. Half way to the bus stop, Father suddenly remembered he had forgot the missal. Running back, he found Andrea, Giovanni, Abraham, Laura and David! Thank you, Lord, for making Father forgetful. We would have left them if he hadn’t!
We took the bus number 8 to Byåsen butikksenter and bought some food. Suddenly we were in the forest! We walked to a lake, where we found a bench to celebrate Mass. Today we celebrated the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary and prayed for the Holy Mother’s intercession, bearing in mind specifically the people’s hardship in Afghanistan.
Father reminded us in his homily what also the late Holy Father John Paul II reminded us: Be not afraid. Mentioned 365 times in the Bible, one for every day of the year, to remind us that God is with us each and every day and thus we have nothing to fear. We finished Mass by singing the short version of Ubi Caritas, a song most of us knew by heart. The words are very simple, but the meaning so profound and so precious to us: Ubi caritas est amor, Ubi caritas Deus ibi est! Where charity and love are, God is there. My latin is not the best, but my comfort will be that that’s true for most of the readers too 
After a walk we gathered for lunch by another bench, another lake. It was a peaceful place, under the trees. We shared a prayer and chocolate. After another walk, we found Karoline’s secret blueberry place and picked. We walked all the way down to Ila, now we were tired! But that’s one of the joys of nature: to see it and enjoy it you have to put effort and time into it.
Thank you all for coming! I hope we’ll see you all again.
Peace and love!
Pia Maria
