This year, one of the triple Anniversaries that both the OLA Sisters and SMA Fathers celebrate is the birth of Fr Augustine Planque SMA, founder of the Our Lady of Apostles Sisters (OLA) and also who, as the second Superior General of the SMA, ensured the continuation and growth of the Society of African Missions. He was born 200 years ago on the 25th of July 1826. Without him the SMA would likely have ceased to exist soon after it was founded and the OLA would not have come into being.
He was born in Chemy, northern France, into a devout and hardworking Catholic family. As a young man searching for direction, her 
discovered an appeal from Monsignor Melchior de Marion Brésillac, who sought volunteers for a new missionary initiative – the Society of African Missions. Inspired, Planque arrived in Lyons in November 1856, just a few weeks before the formal founding of the SMA on the 8th of December.
Planque longed to be sent to African but Brésillac, discerning his gifts asked him to remain in France while he and the first small group of missionaries travelled to Sierra Leone. Tragically, within weeks, all but one of the group, including Brésillac, succumbed to yellow fever. Despite pressure to abandon the fledgling society, Augustine Planque stepped into leadership with determination and faith.
In the following decades he guided the Society of African Missions with a combination of sound judgement, forward vision, humility and deep spiritual grounding. He was known for his ability to analyse situations, anticipate needs, and chart new paths – a skill that helped secure the Society’s survival and growth.
Fr Plangue knew that reaching the women of West African required the presence of women missionaries, and he turned to several existing congregations for help. A courageous group of Franciscan sisters responded and worked in SMA missions for several years. Still, the need was far greater.
When Planque petitioned the Pope for more sisters, the answer her received was simple and challenging. “You want nuns. Well, make them!”
Though already fully occupied as Superior General of the rapidly growing SMA, Fr Planque trusted that if God needed a new congregation, God would provide the means. He issued an appeal in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith and women from France and Ireland answered generously. From these first volunteers, a new congregation took shape.
He placed the growing community of sisters under the protection of Mary, Queen of Apostles and chose as their motto the phrase from Acts 11:14: “With Mary, the Mother of Jesus.” Thus, on the 1st of May 1876 the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles were born.
About a year later the first OLA missionaries arrived in Lagos. Among them were two Irishwomen, Sr Dominique O’Riordan (Cork) and Sr Felicity Kirwan (Dublin). Both gave their lives within their fist year on mission – an early testament to the courage and sacrifice that would characterise the congregation’s history. In the following years, the presence of OLA sisters spread throughout West Africa, North Africa the Middle East and beyond. Wherever they went they responded to the most urgent needs of the people, establishing schools, clinics, hospitals and undertaking pastoral outreach to villages, homes and prisons.
Today, OLA Sisters serve in twenty-one countries across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America. Their work remains anchored in the same spirit Fr Planque instilled: profound faith, courage and commitment to making Christ known and loved.
Fr Planque died on the 21st of August 1907 at the age of 81. He is buried at the SMA Seminary in Lyons. His legacy lives on in the thousands of SMA Priests and OLA sisters who continue the mission he dedicated his life to and worked to promote.
Source: The article above is taken mostly from an OLA publication.