The OLA Blog
Stories, reflections, and updates from our mission and community life. Here we share reflections, insights and experiences, believing that the simple act of sharing can inspire, connect, and open hearts.
Learning Beyond Borders: Nigerian Students Complete First Erasmus+ Exchange
Five students from Veritas University, Abuja, have returned home after a semester studying in Poland under the Erasmus+ exchange programme, completing the university's first participation in the initiative. The programme opens the door to future opportunities for...
What Ireland’s EU Presidency Means for Justice
Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union began yesterday, 1 July 2026. The Presidency rotates among the 27 member states every six months, giving each country the opportunity to help steer the Council's work, set meeting agendas and move...
OLA Remembrance Day 2026
On Saturday 27 June, families and friends gathered at Ardfoyle for our Remembrance Day and Blessing of the Graves, a service we hold every two years to remember our OLA Sisters who have gone before us. Since we last gathered in this way, four Sisters have died: Sr...
What the Machine Cannot Hold
A Reflection on Magnifica Humanitas and the deeper question There are conversations that take place at altitude. The air is thin, the view is long, and the language moves in ways that most of the world does not recognise. Sr Ilia Delio’s response to Pope Leo...
The OLA Mission in Liberia
Liberia carries the memory of decades of civil conflict and the long aftermath of the Ebola epidemic of 2014–2016. Recovery has been slow and uneven, shaped by significant gaps in healthcare, education, and infrastructure, and by the particular vulnerability of women...
Together as One Family in Lagos: A Triple Jubilee
Our District Leader, Sr Mary Crowley, is in Lagos this week, among leaders and members of the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles and the Society of African Missions gathering from across the world for the Triple Jubilee: 150 years of the OLA, 170 years of the SMA, and...
A Sword Will Pierce Your Own Soul Too
In the first two reflections this month, Mary spoke. At the Annunciation, she asked a question from within her own reality before she said yes. In the Magnificat, she named the world she and her people knew and proclaimed its reversal...
Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo’s Encyclical on AI, is Published
Pope Leo XIV published his first social encyclical yesterday, 25 May 2026. It was signed on 15 May, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, through which Leo XIII laid the foundations of the Church's social teaching in 1891, and the timing is deliberate....
Pilgrimage to Knock in Our Jubilee Year
This weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to Knock, Ireland’s national Marian shrine, together with the Society of African Missions. We came together in prayer, remembrance and thanksgiving around three anniversaries: 170 years since the Society of African Missions...
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