Corban

Today : Corban

Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this.” — Mark 7:13 NET

It is a good thing to dedicate one’s property to God. But when we have done this we must take good heed that we use it in the ways marked out for us by the Divine commandments. It will not do to cover miserliness and greed by a pretence that we have given our money to God, and therefore cannot use it for charitable purposes.

For example, if a man has needy parents, one of the first uses of consecrated money is to provide for their wants. He may say that he is gathering means to build an orphanage, or an asylum for infirm old men or old women, and that he has consecrated his property to this great charity; but if meanwhile he allows his own aged parents to suffer, his consecration of property is not acceptable to God. He who sets aside the fifth commandment that he may use his money for the poor is playing a miserable farce before God. No amount of service in the work of the Church avails when one is neglecting the duties he owes to his own family.

The case is still worse when, as under the Rabbinical rules, the money or property was never really used at all for God, the plea of “Corban” being only a pretext to evade the requirements of filial duty. The consecration of money to God implies always the use of the consecrated money in the service of God as He may call for it. God does not want money hoarded up; He wants it going about doing good. We apply the parable of the talents to everything but money, when there surely is nothing to which the parable applies more certainly than to money. At least we may never pretend that we have given our money to God, and therefore cannot give it away. Giving it away for wise use is the very thing God wants us to do with it.