My mission goes on…
Top row from left: Francine Maas, Martha Grageda, Marie Heintz and Lucille Pilotte Bottom row from left: Regina Ramos, Mary Rita Kelley and Felicia Nowak ONCE A MISSIONARY ALWAYS A MISSIONARY By Sr. Francine Maas in Winoosky community, Vermont-USA After 43 happy years of ministering in Tanzania and at our General Headquarters in Rome, I returned definitively to my home country, the USA, in September 2021. After settling-in, I was soon busy with helping my sisters in whatever their needs were. At that time, we were a community of 10 sisters, living in a small care home with about 35 elderly residents, but today we MSOLA number only 7. As 4 ½ years have now passed, the details of my ministry have changed but the main areas remained the same. It is my hope that in this short article I can show you…
Meditation in memory of our Algerian martyrs
A total of 19 men and women religious, priests and a bishop, were slain in Algeria between 1994 and 1996 during the Algerian Civil War. They were declared martyrs by Pope Francis and beatified on 8 December 2018 in Oran. To facilitate the prayer for tomorrow we share a meditation prepared by the White Fathers in memory of our brothers murdered on the 27th December 1994 in Tizi Ouzou. Link to download the Meditation for the blessed martyrs of Algeria
What is my response?
The Lilongwe community with Sr. Monique Vien By Sr. Anafrida Biro, Lilongwe community in Malawi While reading our last Sharing Trentaprile, 2026 – 1, page 30 (human suffering experienced by people in the refugee camp), I felt pushed to stop and ponder over the words “They teach us not to ask “why?”, but rather, “what is my response?” I was immediately enabled to connect to what I was experiencing with my Sisters in the community, thanks to our Sister Monique Vien from Canada, who after our congregation meeting in Dar es Salaam, came for some weeks to our community in Lilongwe Malawi, to visit her cherished Country and friends encountered through many years of her missionary life there. I had sufficient time to listen to Sr. Monique and realised that, she was blessed to work in different countries and in different places in Malawi itself such as…
30th April Patronal feast of Our Lady of Africa
Cardinal Lavigerie reminds us that “he could never do any good without the intercession and the special protection of the Blessed Virgin from whom he often felt the effects in an extraordinary way. He believed that the missionaries of Algiers would never do anything except through her assistance.” (Lavigerie to his missionaries, p. 101) On this day we celebrate the presence of Our Lady of Africa in our apostolate, in our mission, in our congregation. This year, we want to remember her through the visit of Pope Leo to the Basilica in Algiers, with a series of photos taken from the video of his visit in April 2026.
Refugees’ wellbeing at the heart of our mission
From the Ukusijoni Community, in Uganda The state of refugee life is in fact a life of poverty. For some it becomes misery, seeing how they forcibly left their own land to establish themselves in a very limited space in another country. Some manage to come out of it, but the majority remain in a dire situation. This is the case of so many in Maaji and Agojo refugee settlements in Adjumani district, Northern Uganda. Our mission in Maaji and Agojo settlements, seeks to respond to the concrete realities of the refugees with their various needs. It is a pastoral apostolate that includes humanitarian responses where possible. Refugees need God in the first place, in whom they find their answers, and those they discover as God’s messengers become part of their lives. Our service to them seems to have come at the right time, when amid the…
Pope Leo XIV in Algeria as a Messenger of Peace
Algerian faithfuls This post is an extract from Vatican news Link to the article Pope Leo XIV made an Apostolic visit to Algeria on Monday April 13th. In the following interview, Fr. Vincent Kyererezi, a member of the Missionaries of Africa and Vicar General of the diocese of Laghouat-Ghardaïa, explains the importance of the visit and the role of the Church in the predominantly Muslim Algerian society. How big is the catholic community in Algeria and in the diocese of Laghouat-Ghardaïa where you serve? The Catholic community in Algeria is estimated at 8900 faithfuls. The diocese of Laghoaut-Ghardaïa where I serve as Vicar General has about 2,240 Christians, served by 14 priests, including the bishop, 19 nuns, and 5 religious brothers. We generally serve in a “Church of encounter and dialogue with Muslims” that endeavors to foster fraternity, mutual understanding and harmonious co-existence with one another. The Catholic Church has four dioceses:…
Pope Leo XIV at Notre-Dame d’Afrique
From Sr Bernadette Djekoye on mission in Algeria “But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (luke 1:43) These words of Elizabeth, expressing both humility and deep joy, resonate with what I experienced when Pope Leo XIV was welcomed to Algeria. It is with great joy that I share with you my experience of this visit to Notre-Dame d’Afrique on 13 April 2026. For several months, preparations had been intensifying, both within the Church and on the part of the Algerian government, whose commitment was admirable. Everything was organised very well. On the morning of 13 April, from a large stadium, extensive transport arrangements and an impressive security operation were put in place to take us to the basilica, situated on the heights of Algiers. This place is highly symbolic: it is both a place of prayer for Christians and…
A new member at the Dicastery
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development was created on August 17, 2016 according to the wishes that our Holy Father Pope Francis expressed in his Apostolic Letter, under the form of a Motu Proprio, Humanam Progressionem. The new Dicastery promotes the integral development of the person in light of the Gospel and in line with the Social Doctrine of the Church. It dedicates particular attention to taking care of the goods of justice, peace and the safeguarding of Creation, as well as issues regarding disarmament, human rights, human mobility, health, charitable works, expressing the concern and attention of the Pope towards a humanity that suffers, among whom are the needy, the ill and the excluded. In addition, the Dicastery follows issues regarding the necessities of those who are forced to abandon their own countries or those who are without one, the marginalized, the victims of armed conflicts and…
Walking Together in Mission: Insights from the Tanzania Gathering
Sister Angela Kapitingana shares a video about the meeting that took place in Tanzania from 17 to 23 March 2026. For these five days, we, the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, from all over the countries where we are for mission, in Africa, Europe, Canada and America, we have met here. The purpose of this meeting was simply the Synodal Way, to come together, to listen together, to discern together for the way forward, how we want to continue to live the theme chapter and the mandate that the chapter gave us in 2023. Indeed, it has been a moment of encounter where we explore together what does the world today invite us to respond effectively. Secondly, this encounter marks our great, great desire of how we want to work together without fear. We want to bring about new life, even in our very ordinary ministries that we are…
Celebrating in the periphery in Rwanda
From our Sr. Marie Kanyoni, in the community of Butare, in Rwanda Our community wanted to conclude the bicentennial of Cardinal Lavigerie with the sister congregations, the Benebikira and the Abizeramaria from our parish; and also with our close neighbors from the cathedral as well as our collaborators, the former students of MSOLA. Then, one of us had the idea of inviting the poor from the peripherie with whom we work in our apostolates, that is, the four groups from three different villages and the Notre Dame d’Afrique Center (sewing center for young women). With this gesture, we find ourselves fully in line with the apostolic exhortation of Pope Leo XIV: From the beginning, Scripture manifests with such intensity God’s love through the protection of the weak and the less fortunate, that one could speak of a kind of ‘soft spot’ of God towards them. The poor have…