THE LORD GIVES, OIKOS GIVES AWAY—BLESSED BE THE LORD!
Homily delivered by Msgr Lope Robredillo on the 25th Founding Anniversary of the
Oikos Ptochos Tou Theou (The Poor Household of God)
03 May 2023, Chiesa di S. Francesco, Borongan, Eastern Samar
Twenty-five years ago, the Oikos sisters began as a small group of young girls. Initially, it was far from their minds to found religious order. All they wanted was to follow Jesus more closely than was possible in the community they were originally part of. Except for a few people, they were almost completely unnoticed in Borongan. They had no home they could all their own, and no one knew where they would get their next meal. Today, their name is known not only in the Diocese but even in some parts of the world. Their service to the Church and to Eastern Samar is conspicuous. Though they remain small, they have more than fifty coworkers and more than a hundred friends and benefactors who support them. Though they are not married, they probably have the biggest family in the Diocese. What started as a tiny community that welcomes the homeless and the needy like themselves has become a community of various apostolic services.
Today is our Thanksgiving Day. But we thank God not so much for the 25 years of Oikos’ life, as because of God’s inscrutable gifts to them. The very existence of this community is God’s gift. That is to say, on this 25th founding anniversary of the Oikos, what we observe is primarily a celebration of God’s grace. Oikos is God’s gift, made visible in their community. God is working through them. Ever since I recognized them officially as a legitimate community in the Parish of Borongan during my term as pastor and accepted their invitation to serve as their spiritual director, and have accompanied them in my own little way, I am convinced that Oikos is the work of God.
This is not to say that what Sister Mines and the other sisters have done are not taken into account. No one can deny their hard, even heroic, endeavors. But what I mean is that the establishment and the operation of this community are themselves God’s work. He chose them not because he has seen their extraordinary talents or personal credentials. Rather, God chose them out of his own goodness to engage in mission. What is it in the sisters that God saw in choosing them is opaque to human understanding. All we know is that, when God chooses, it is simply out his own will, not on the merits that he had seen in those he has chosen. What the sisters did was simply to response to God’s subtle invitation. And their response, using all the gifts that God had equipped them, has given rise to what Oikos is at the present moment. That is why, I believe that Oikos is God’s miracle in our midst.
Today, Oikos is known for its various services. Their house is a welcome home, and they have been engaged in such ministries as hospital apostolate, retreat facilitation, services to youth and orphans, housing projects, fostering of scholarship, distribution of free medicine, and others. But we should not make the mistake of taking all these as the identifying marks of the Oikos community. No, these are not. They are not what the community exists for. What they are is more important than what they do, even if it is the latter that people immediately apprehend and probably value them for. When we look at the sisters, we should consider them first in their unique role in Borongan and in the whole Diocese, which is to be living signs of some essential aspects of our life as Christians.
The first is their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the second in their common life, and the third is their mission. These remain relevant. We are in a culture that exalts accumulation, bodily pleasure and personal independence. We live in a culture that tends to gauge people on the basis of their success and achievement in these areas of life. But the faithfulness of the Oikos sisters to their vows bears witness to what God is reminding us. Their presence is God’s way to telling us that greed leads to the impoverishment of many, that God placed all the world’s resources in the service of all people, that our love has to include everyone through our compassion especially for those in the margins, that the will of God must prevail over our pursuit of personal and selfish ends and that the Word of God must be heard and faithfully obeyed.
Because the Oikos sisters regard themselves as God’s gift to our people, especially those on the fringes of our society, their heart is forever grateful to the Lord, and this gratefulness itself deepens their relationship with God and their belief in the abundance of his grace. Despite the various improvements that we see, despite the new car gifted to them, this should not scandalize us. The Oikos sisters are poor; they remain poor. But they remain convinced of God’s providence and generosity toward them. The conviction that God is working through them has awakened the generosity of many people who have become their benefactors and friends. This has strengthened the generosity of the community to the poor and stirred the generosity of their benefactors who themselves became aware of God’s beneficence to them. The community of Oikos lives and depends on God’s generosity manifested in the generosity of their benefactors. God works by stirring up the big-heartedness of their supporters and recipients of God’s grace. The sisters’ engagement in various apostolates and the benefits they have given to the poor testifies to the abundance of God’s grace.
Because of its belief in the abundance of God’s grace, Oikos does not hoard. It does not have financial investments. What it receives from benefactors, it goes to people who are in need. The Lord gives, Oikos gives them away. That is most likely the reason why, though they are few, so many, especially those in the margins, have benefited from their services. How blessed is the Lord! For it is the Lord himself who provides the means so that his design for the community may be done, both in terms of resources and personnel. All of them are graces from God; I cannot explain them in terms of the merely human efforts of these sisters.
It is not an accident, therefore, that we chose St Francis of Assisi for our patronal saint. Oikos is not a Franciscan community in the sense of having originated from a branch of the Franciscan religious order. No, it is not. But it draws its inspiration from St Francis. Among other reasons, St Francis chose poverty for his spouse and sought to be the poorest of the poor. But his poverty was only secondary to his absolute dependence on the grace of God. He embraced poverty because, without resources of his own, he was entirely dependent on God’s generosity. And what his community had was always shared with the poor. The Lord gives, Francis gives them away. That is the Oikos model of consecrated life. This ideal is embodied in the name that the community took, Oikos Ptochos Tou Theou. It is a conflation from St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (Eph 2:19) and the macarism in Luke (6:20), meaning, The Poor Household of God.
Sometimes, I am asked—will Oikos survive? The question is raised because, according to some, the sisters are so few and they are apprehensive that there may not be successors to continue what they had begun. My answer has always been this: It is my conviction that Oikos is God’s work. Therefore, its future is not in the hands of the sisters. It does not depend on the ability or talent of Sister Mines and the rest of the community. It is in the mind and the will of God. If it dies in a few years, that probably means that the task God had intended for them to take up has been fulfilled. If the beginning is God’s, so must be its end. For what is important is not that the Oikos sisters becomes a showcase of a lasting institution in the Diocese, but that God’s intention has been brought to completion. After all, everything passes, according to its appointed time.
Even so, in connection with this, more than twice I suppose, I have mentioned to the sisters the story of Charles de Foucauld. His spiritual journey is long and complicated, but what I pointed out to them is that the saint intended to found a monastic religious community in North Africa that offered hospitality to Christians, Muslims, Jews and people without religion. He lived a peaceful life all alone, but he never attracted a single companion. No one came to succeed him. At the outbreak of World War I, an African tribe seized and killed him, along with two French soldiers who came to visit him. One would suppose that that was the end of Charles de Foucauld and his intention. But no. What happened was that five religious congregations, associations and institutes were born, drawing inspiration from his peaceful, hidden life. He was canonized two years ago.
God always writes straight in crooked lines. I believe that Oikos is written that way. And it is God’s pure grace.
