Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children
By John-Henry Westen
NEW YORK, December 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A review of New Line Cinema's The Nativity story by Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger of the Franciscans of the Immaculate in the United States, points out that the film, which opened December 1, misinterprets scripture from a Catholic perspective.
While Fr. Geiger admits that he found the film is "in general, to be a pious and reverential presentation of the Christmas mystery." He adds however, that "not only does the movie get the Virgin Birth wrong, it thoroughly Protestantizes its portrayal of Our Lady."
In Isaiah 7:14 the Bible predicts the coming of the Messiah saying: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." Fr. Geiger, in an video blog post, explains that the Catholic Church has taught for over 2000 years that the referenced Scripture showed that Mary would not only conceive the child miraculously, but would give birth to the child miraculously - keeping her physical virginity intact during the birth.
The film, he suggests, in portraying a natural, painful birth of Christ, thus denies the truth of the virginal and miraculous birth of Christ, which, he notes, the Fathers of the Church compared to light passing through glass without breaking it. Fr. Geiger quoted the fourth century St. Augustine on the matter saying. "That same power which brought the body of the young man through closed doors, brought the body of the infant forth from the inviolate womb of the mother."
Fr. Geiger contrasts The Nativity Story with The Passion of the Christ, noting that with the latter, Catholics and Protestants could agree to support it. He suggests, however, that the latter is "a virtual coup against Catholic Mariology".
The characterization of Mary further debases her as Fr. Geiger relates in his review. "Mary in The Nativity lacks depth and stature, and becomes the subject of a treatment on teenage psychology."
Beyond the non-miraculous birth, the biggest let-down for Catholics comes from Director Catherine Hardwicke's own words. Hardwicke explains her rationale in an interview: "We wanted her [Mary] to feel accessible to a young teenager, so she wouldn't seem so far away from their life that it had no meaning for them. I wanted them to see Mary as a girl, as a teenager at first, not perfectly pious from the very first moment. So you see Mary going through stuff with her parents where they say, 'You're going to marry this guy, and these are the rules you have to follow.' Her father is telling her that she's not to have sex with Joseph for a year-and Joseph is standing right there."
Comments Fr. Geiger, "it is rather disconcerting to see Our Blessed Mother portrayed with 'attitude;' asserting herself in a rather anachronistic rebellion against an arranged marriage, choosing her words carefully with her parents, and posing meaningful silences toward those who do not understand her."
Fr. Geiger adds that the film also contains "an overly graphic scene of St. Elizabeth giving birth," which is "just not suitable, in my opinion, for young children to view."
Despite its flaws Fr. Geiger, after viewing the film, also has some good things to say about it. "Today, one must commend any sincere attempt to put Christ back into Christmas, and this film is certainly one of them," he says. "The Nativity Story in no way compares to the masterpiece which is The Passion of the Christ, but it is at least sincere, untainted by cynicism, and a worthy effort by Hollywood to end the prejudice against Christianity in the public square."
And, in addition to a good portrait of St. Joseph, the film offers "at least one cinematic and spiritual triumph" in portraying the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. "Although the Magnificat is relegated to a kind of epilogue at the movie's end, the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth is otherwise faithful to the scriptures and quite poignant. In a separate scene, the two women experience the concurrent movement of their children in utero and share deeply in each other's joy. I can't think of another piece of celluloid that illustrates the dignity of the unborn child better than this."
See Fr. Geiger's full review here:
http://airmaria.com/
"It is the Day of Resurrection! Let us shine forth in splendor for the Festival and embrace one another. Let us say, 'O brethren, even to those who do not love us; let us forgive all things in the Resurrection and thus let us exclaim: Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling Death by death and bestowing life to those in the tombs!'"
And thank you so much for bringing Leibniz in! Jeepers, he is so important to any discussion of permanence and flux. Sorry I forgot him.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard. - Psalms 19:1-3
Please correct me if I am wrong, kosta50.
Any hoot, that is why I went into the little sidebar on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - and the metaphor of the stage play.
BTW, the difference between the Jewish and Christian calendars is a dispute of some 240 years over the amount of time the Jews spent in exile in Babylon.
Though some may have lost a taste for the Greek philosophers, I suspect their legacy will continue unabated by the mathematicians and physicists.
After all, every time a mathematician scribbles a variable in a formula he is attesting to the universality of it. And pi remains pi whether on earth or some distant galaxy.
And there will always be physicists like Max Tegmark and Roger Penrose who perceive "things" in space/time as mathematical structures "beyond" space/time.
Already this has happened to me multiple times..
Where I "started" is not "where" I am now.. When I started out as a christian I could not have accepted some things I KNOW to be true now.. BUT now those things seems obvious to me..
And thats WHY? I say this verse of scripture not only WILL BE TRUE but is happening NOW to some people... My favorite verse of scripture above.. IT RESONATES WITHIN ME..
Indeed, I do not know what the new heaven and new earth will be like beyond what God has revealed to us in Revelation - but I'm very sure it will be thrilling.
BB: “To me, to speak of “corruption” is to touch on spiritual matters, which seemingly affect only living beings, and possibly only human beings. So I wonder to what extent we can speak of galaxies as having been subject to corruption in former times; I just don’t see that galaxies could be spiritual entities — unless the entire creation is in some fashion a living being, as Plato suggested.”
AG: “Indeed, I do not perceive a culpable persona being associated with inanimate things.”
I will take the risk and opine that Kosta was not speaking of decay in Creation as being the result of some culpability on the part of inanimate objects. Rather, in accord with The Fathers and the OT, what he is saying is that our sins burden all of Creation and distort it. Some have said that the natural disasters we observe in our lives are the result, generally, not of God’s “wrath” (though sometimes it may well be in a pedagogic sense)but rather distortions in the created order of the universe brought about by our sins. Through us, all creation is a slave of death. Were we to fully respond to God, however, the true created order of things would be restored and the lion would indeed lie down with the lamb.
“Creation is a slave; the Spirit sets free. Creation stands in need of life; the Spirit is the Life-Giver. Creation needs instruction; the Spirit is the Teacher. Creation is sanctified; the Spirit is the Sanctifier.” +Basil the Great
It seems to me that Christ speaks to us through His letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. All seven churches are accepted by Him with commendations and rebukes - though two of the churches are spared rebukes and both of them remind me of Orthodox Christians I am privileged to know.
The first is the much suffering church of Smyrna in which I see the perservance of many Orthodox under extreme duress:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. - Rev 3:7-13
WOO- WEE.. the metaphor adds to the truth/power of it..
Already this has happened to me multiple times..
That is my sense of it, at least. "Perfect" is a mental construct. It does not exist in reality. We use it in reference to God, but it doesn't really tell us anything about him, because he defines it, rather than the other way around.
"Perfect" with reference to anything else, can not exist, because any state of "perfect" you could imagine only sets the stage for the next stage of "perfect". If you could map "perfect", it would trace a corkscrew path moving away at light speed in any of a thousand directions.
"Perfection", however, does exist, and it is the fundamental essence of creation both as an act and as a description of what occurs in natural history and human history as well, despite all the detours and crashes along the way. I'm convinced that detours and crashes (and missing links and biological dead ends) are an inevitable part of the process.
"Perfection", in fact, turns "perfect" on its head. We might imagine that for any question there is one right answer, but life shows us a million right answers, and more on the way. There isn't one tree, there are myriad species and among all the individual trees not one is like any other, not even another of the same species, and not one of them stops changing right up until the moment of death.
” It seems to me that Christ speaks to us through His letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. All seven churches are accepted by Him with commendations and rebukes - though two of the churches are spared rebukes and both of them remind me of Orthodox Christians I am privileged to know.”
What an interesting, and kind, observation, AG, but I trust you also recognize that we Orthodoxers can be the greatest of sinners, the worst among heretics. Some of us, myself included, believe that God chose a time for the Incarnation when Greek was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world so that the NT would be written in Greek and thus readily available to Greeks. We, more than others I’m afraid, need every advantage we can get! :)
Good point.. its a matter of observation(the observer)..
A Fruit is beautiful and juicey and perfectly sweet for a time.. A fruits perfect timeline is dependant on a cycle.. A rotten fruit feeds the seed of a new tree.. completeing the larger cycle.. So-called Corruption just might be fertilizer to/In the Garden of the Universe....
Yes - now read the following carefully...
And David commanded all the assembly: Bless ye the Lord our God. And all the assembly blessed the Lord the God of their fathers: and they bowed themselves and worshipped God, and then the king. And they sacrificed victims to the Lord. 1 Chron 29:20-21.
Note, I include the first half of verse 21. As I said before, that is how we know what is in the mind of others - only when we see them sacrifice. That is the only external action one takes that is DEFINITELY offered to God alone. Not kneeling. Not asking favors of. Not praising. Not even 'worshiping' in the above sense... Clearly, in the above verses, the Jews are "worshiping" David. But then they offer sacrifice to God, not David. We do the same with Mary. We praise her, consider her as "blessed among woman". A little common sense is in order here.
We don't worship Mary as God.
Can I make that any clearer?
Regards
I will defer my never ending debate with beloved brother in Christ, kosta50, on whether the Hebrew or the Greek is to be preferred concerning the discussion of mind, soul and spirit per se.
The entire bible and judeo christian theology rests on the base of that metaphor.. The metaphor is much more powerful than the literal vision of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.. The metaphor of it is a spiritual engine..
Any that miss a degree/part the spiritual content of this metaphorical vision WILL miss some parts of the entire rest of scripture..
By his conquering, Alexander the Great, a subject of Daniel's prophesy, normalized the Greek language in the civilized world. Not only that but certain word concepts going as far back as Plato became common knowledge, e.g. Logos.
Moreover, this clue from Scripture:
” No fair, I thought I was the greatest of sinners and the worst of heretics!”
Nope! We’ve got a corner on those commodities, I’m afraid. :)
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