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/
Alex: This is getting to be comical
My sentiment exactly, Alex!
"appear in two places" is a bit of a stretch; the Gospel does not exactly say that. It says that they did not recognize Jesus till the bread was broken. One can read verse 31 in the sense that they saw Jesus in person but only after the bread was broken, or that they only saw him in some miraculous sense in the bread. Either way, the incident describes a miracle and links Jesus's presence with the bread. The pedestrian reading that Blue Duncan prefers, -- that there was no miracle at all, but rather a recognition of a personally heretofore unfamiliar "brother" is, however, going way outside of what is in the scripture, and is contradicted by v 16, which indicates the supernatural origin of the unrecognition.
Incidentally, the Eucharistic presence of Christ is indeed not bound by time and space to one mass at a time.
their eyes were held, that they should not know him (Luke 24:16)he took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him: and he vanished out of their sight (vv 30-31)
they knew him in the breaking of the bread. (v 35)
Facts are a little different: biblical archeology is just about defunct.
Tel dan at best confirms that there was a Davidian line, but it does nothing to show the size of David’s kingdom. The less gullable will tlel you that the two pieces of the document are not a perfect match and could very well be not one and the same document.
You just like to argue for the sake of argument? Of course H2O always forms water. The formula for H2O, the atoms are part of that working model.
But atoms and electrons are not little 'balls' as they are depicted. They can be represented as such for various reasons, and they behave as if they were bouncy little balls for us to be able to visualize them.
Christ ascended into the heavens, which means He went up and when He returns, He will descend
You are amazing! What's up in Israel is down in Australia. just where "up" is the heaven? And how is Christ sitting to the "right" of the Father when the Father is a Spirit. These are allegorical, not literal descriptions.
So? That does not contradict the Genesis account at all.
Yes, they are older then the earth.
It would seem that your Church has a better understanding on this than you do
I am willing to believe that too, but their teaching is not as convincing as it should be.
No, it's regarded by some, die-hard (ever-shrinking number of) historians despite an embarrassing lack of any evidence. Out of 43 kings they managed to find some proof of nine of them. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever in Egypt, that Jerusalem was anything but a ranch city, that the walls of Jericho did not come tumbling down, and that the Israelites did not take the land of Canaan by force.
Too bad, so sad. Got to keep up!
You need to get out of the 19th century
LOL!
Oooooo....touché
"I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit" (John 3:5)
So if you think that water Baptism saved you, you are greatly deceived and are still lost in your sins
Thanks for your analysis, but I am Orthodox, and we don't believe salvation is a 'moment.'
Well then, I’m sure you read Matt. 14:19, “And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled:” and Matt. 15:36, “And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled” where Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it to the multitudes and He ate some since it says they all ate and were filled.
Then of course you read Luke 24:37-43, “But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them.” and John 20:27, “Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing”; the point being Jesus was flesh and bone, not a spirit. He was localized in His body, just as He is now, sitting at the right hand of the Father. It is the Holy Spirit who is here, not Jesus.
Back to the point that the “breaking of bread” was part of the “brotherhood rite”, the symbolic rite of unity and promise. Look at the discussion that took place at the last supper after the “breaking of bread”. It was an argument over who was going to be sitting next to Jesus in the seats of power in the kingdom that was to come; rank ambition. Jesus does not criticize them but points out they will eat and drink with Him in the Kingdom and be rulers over kingdoms appointed to them. He exposed a traitor who had participated in the brotherhood meal, and He deflated the braggadocio of Peter; all of these things after the “breaking of bread”. That sounds more like a frat party than a solemn eating of the actual body of someone who had not died as yet.
Good point.
Why, all the things you mention cover with precision and completeness the lessons the nascent Church was to learn:
Really? And just where is He "localized," sitting to the right of the Father (as far as I know the Father was never incarnate or "localized" in a body that He would have a "place" or "side")?
There is something known as the Doppler shift. We experience it on earth with sound. We can tell if a train is approaching us or getting farther from us, because the sound waves "stack up" when it's approaching, and "stretch out" when it's leaving.
The same principle applies to light. The object that approach us rapidly will have a spectrum shifted towards the blue end (shorter or "stacked" wavelengths), while those receding from us will have their light spectrum shifted towards the red (longer, "stretched" out wavelengths).
When astronomers look at the Doppler shift, it is apparent that, overall, everything is flying away from each other, that is expanding.
The Big Bang theory speaks of an initial explosion that resulted in the formation of the universe as we know it. Thus, all of the universe looks like an explosion "cloud" -- hot and expanding.
In the mid 1960's researchers were able to measure the "background' temperature of the space. Instead of it being absolute zero (as one would expect in perfect vacuum) they discovered that it was about 2.75 degrees above absolute zero (the unit of measure is absolute temperature or Kelvin, not Fahrenheit, or Celsius). In other words, the space is still "warm."
As long as it is "warm," it will expand like a balloon. When it hits absolute zero, it should stop. But, the scientists are telling us that the universe is not only expanding but accelerating!
The problem is it has been expanding at a high rate of speed for some 30 billion years it is estimated and is, as our dear sister in Christ tells us, 156 billion light years wide (light travels one second from the earth to the moon, or about 160,000 miles/second). So this 'void' into which we are all hurtling is rather large. :)
I am more at ease with not knowing what atoms are than in knowing what I thought they were.. I have my own opinion on what matter/energy is.. But what is space?.. and whats on the other side of space?.. at the end.. the limit.. the edge.. the boundary.. the hemline of infinity?..
I certainly agree that scientific theories are not set in stone. They are not "Truth." Indeed, only God can speak objective Truth.
The Hebrew phrase which describes the void is Ayn Sof, another Name for God, which literally means "no-thing."
In other words, the void of cosmology is God!
Ayn Sof is "One without end from which all being emerges and into which all being dissolves."
If the void could be filled it would be a vacuum, it would have geometry, i.e. space/time.
This is all about timelessness and spacelessness --- a very, very difficult concept for denizens of space/time.
Timelessness is not eternity or "time without end" or "infinite past/infinite future." It is not even zero time. It is no time.
Likewise, spacelessness is not infinity or even zero dimensions - it is no dimensions.
God has no boundaries.
He doesn't exist "in" space or "in" time. That is why the Jewish Mystics use the term Ayn Sof to describe Him at the moment they say (and I agree) the desire arose in Him to reveal Himself, and thus there was a beginning.
If so, then Animism is vindicated.. My brother the buffalo, sister the grass, and cousin the solar system and even friend the Black Hole is more than metaphorical.. God then is the substance of all thingly things..
I like to think in the following cosmological perspective: All dimensions (space, time, etc) are the aspects of Ayn Sof and YHWH allows dimensions to be separated from the whole of His essence, in such a way as to bring the universe into existence, to create that which is from He who is that He is; the name Elohiym contains a dual nature and it is this dual nature who brings forth a third, as linear and planar bring forth volume, past and present bring forth future, etc. It isn’t scientific, but it allows me to contemplate the cosmos in a chosen perspective for my own edification.
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