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.
When Mission Comes Home
When we think of mission work, we often picture airplane tickets and passport stamps; Sisters packing for far shores, building schools in remote villages, learning languages far from the place they were born. This work continues, and it matters. But something else is...
Dignity and Justice: Ending Poverty Together
“The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” (Psalm 34:6) On 17 October, we mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This is more than a symbolic date: it calls us to confront not only the lack of resources but the deeper injustices faced by those living in...
In Rome for the Jubilee of Consecrated Life
Sr Mary Usifoh OLA and Sr Mary T. Barron OLA, pictured in Rome for the Jubilee of Consecrated Life.Sisters Mary Usifoh and Mary T. Barron are in Rome this week with consecrated women and men from around the world. The days are set aside for prayer, silence, and shared...
The Future of Mission from the African Perspective
Last week we stood at the shoreline, listening to the coast as a metaphor for encounter — a place that shelters, unsettles, and reshapes. We do not stand alone at this threshold. Sr Anne Falola’s voice reminds us that the future is not a distant goal, but something...
Sr Mary Rita O’Mahony Celebrates 70th Jubilee
On 6 September 2025, the Ardfoyle community came together with family and friends to celebrate the 70th Jubilee of Sr Mary Rita O’Mahony. A Cork native, born in 1934, she entered the OLA community in 1953 and made her first profession two years later. For 62 of those...
The coast as a Metaphor for Encounter
In the last reflection we traced the history of the SMA and OLA mission, a story shaped by both fragility and faith. From there, the shoreline itself emerged as a living image — a place of transition and encounter that continues to speak into the meaning of mission...
The History of the SMA and OLA Mission in Africa
Last week we shared the voices of the pioneer sisters, whose letters revealed the cost and courage of those first beginnings. Holding their words, we now turn to the broader history of the SMA and OLA mission, a story neither smooth nor settled, but carried by faith...
Holding Earth in Our Hands
The first of September approaches without fanfare. In Ireland, the mornings are cooling now. The fields tilt towards harvest. Leaves will soon begin to loosen their hold. Across Africa, the earth tells a different story. One of parched soil, of rains that do...
At the Edge of the Shoreline
This series of reflections draws on materials shared by those present in Oudah, earlier this year for the launch of our Jubilee celebrations. They engage with the written traces of the colloquium an attempt to dwell with the textures that emerged from those voices....
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