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/
I'm very much looking forward to the package and will let you know right away everything my husband has to say! Thank you!
AMEN. AGREED. THANKS.
BTW, ALL:
Please consider agreeing with my prayer at post# 71 on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1819116/posts
for the parents of the killer who have been hospitalized for shock. It would not be uncommon for such folks of Asian nationality to commit suicide but evidently they have not attempted it. They still need our prayers fairly urgently.
BTW, thanks A-G. Much appreciated, for sure.
Must call it a night now. See you tomorrow!
But it’s still what you think. In other words, your opinion = HS. I don’t buy it. I am sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful.
= = =
I don’t feel disrespected, thankfully. Maybe we are mostly beyond that. Hope so. I do love you dearly.
And, certainly, kosta50, learning to discern, distinguish between one’s own mental noise and self-talk and Holy Spirit can be an increaingly refined life task—at least for some of us who can seem like very slow learners.
Yet, Holy Spirit is able to “yell quietly” when He needs or wants to. And, when we learn to FOLLOW AFTER PEACE, over time, we learn that there’s a very distinct difference between OPINION and HOLY SPIRIT’S VOICE.
VERY TYPICALLY, HOLY SPIRIT WILL SAY SOMETHING VERY CONTRARY to our private, personal opinions about this or that. Often pulling us up short and causing a kind of shocked OHHHHHHHHHH! WOW. WELLLL, Goodness, HS, hadn’t seen THAT before. Hadn’t thought of it THAT way before.
Eventually, personal opinion just has a whole different character about it.
INDEED. And that 70 X 7 business is a persistent source of comforting hope! LOL.
Sigh.
You may consider yourself the trouble maker . . . LOL.
But I suspect many OTHERS might consider me the trouble maker! LOL.
But I don’t want to be prideful about THAT! YUCK!
Loving you more and more kosta50.
True enough.
But sometimes God requires us to speak up about this or that He has done in or through our lives so that someone else might learn or be encouraged.
Great insights. Thanks.
Likewise.
Amen.
Yes. But Christ was a great story teller.
And sometimes He asks us to tell the stories of His interventions in our lives so that others can have hope, encouragement, exhortation, edification, peace, comfort.
Well, in reading your whole post, I may not totally understand where you are coming from, so if the following is unresponsive, it's not intentional. :)
All I'm really saying is that the word "free" is a relative term. The only one Who is totally free in all things is God Himself. God is the only one in control of all things. Now, this being said, we certainly do experience and do have varying levels of freedom in our lives. Before salvation, we are relatively free to sin, but we are not free to do good in God's eyes. However, God remains in control, and if a particular lost person wishes to commit a particular sin, and it goes against God's plan, then He prevents the sin. Pharaoh wanted to continue sinning by keeping the Israelites in bondage. At the appointed time, God prevented that sin from continuing.
Now, once we are saved, then we are also relatively free to do good in God's eyes. And, the good that we do is actually God working through us, so He is fully in control of that. We do experience freedom of choice, but God is ultimately in control of all. I don't "feel" any less free than you do, and I certainly don't consider myself a puppet. I am just fine with the idea that God allows some variables. However, I can't begin to quantify to what extent. IOW, I don't know whether it is part of God's plan whether I put my left or right shoe on first. I am content no matter the answer.
How can we give the sovereignty of God its proper place in any account without ending up sounding a lot like Muslims - "(shrug) It is written, inscrutable but written: some are damned, some are saved, what can you do but what it is written that you shall do, what can you suffer but what it is written you shall suffer ....)
I honestly don't know if Islam has any commonality with my views on God's sovereignty. But even if it did, that would not automatically say to me that I'm wrong. I mean, somewhere in Islam it must say to love one's neighbor. So are we wrong because Islam says that? Of course not. Certainly, Islam is not a Godly faith. However, it does not mean that we simply believe the opposite on all points.
But [Muslims] seem to despise freedom, while in every other FR forum but the religious one Freedom is a value.
Yes, but they despise freedom on almost every level. They do not experience freedom in any way that we do. They have almost no relative freedom. Here, we are basically just talking about the experience of the person during life. Our God wants that experience to be much better and joyful for us than they believe their God wants for them. Their loss.
Overall, I see freedom as being about power and control. I think the human instinct is to want as much of that as we can get. I see the Christian faith as being about the willing and loving surrender of perceived power and control over to God. When you and I each do that for real, the effect is the same, it is good and pleasing to God. That is, even though we may disagree about what's going on behind the scenes. :)
Me! I would! I would know His Voice anywhere, saying anything (He lives in me, I have His ears)!
One of my favorite passages from Jesus' Book:
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young,
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:
So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
~Deuteronomy 32:11-12
Oh man, you are right in line with a final snippet of a wondrous message from Ravi Zacharias I heard yesterday! I highly recommend it to all!
Only if you cling on to +Paul, as interpreted by Protestants. Truly, you need to move on and diversify your biblical references.
I am always willing to look at any scripture, it just so happens that Paul takes up a huge chunk of the NT. :) Several verses make clear that the concept of the elect is a "pre-" concept. God has already chosen them, before Judgment day. For example:
Mark 13:20-22 : 20 If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. 21 At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. 22 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect — if that were possible.
But I can't ignore what Paul says either: :)
2 Tim 2:10 : Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. (i.e. the elect are the elect before they are saved)
Rom 9:10-13 : 10 Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad — in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls — she was told, "The older will serve the younger." 13 Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
The order in all of these is clear.
"If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?" (1 Pet 4:18)
Yes, by any human imagination of it, it took a TON of God's work for any man to be saved. There HAD to be an Incarnation, there HAD to be a crucifixion, there HAD to be a resurrection, there HAD to be the overcoming of men's hardened hearts, etc. We agree this is no small potatoes. My view is that Peter is saying that since God did this only for the elect, what chance do the ungodly have of becoming saved on their own, or by any other way? Zero.
Amen, Dr. E.! Great post. It all ties in together.
Trust me on this one AG, Kosta is a BIG troublemaker...it comes from the air in our Balkan mountains, hence we are called Balkan Mountain Bandits (Alex is one too, by adoption and in recognition of his many years in our mountains and his fluency in the Mother Tongue). We just can't help ourselves. Some say its genetic, but I think its the air! :)
Your comments about you experiencing the indwelling of the HS for decades interests me. The Orthodox Church is quite clear, especially nowadays, on the possibility of theosis outside the bounds of the Orthodox Church. From what little I can understand about you from FR, it does appear that you are rather more advanced in theosis than me, but I assure you that might be taken as damning with faint praise. But please allow me to suggest that the further one advances in theosis, the greater an attraction to the demons one becomes. In Orthodoxy we have the practice of "noetic prayer" prayer of the heart its sometimes called. The prayer is quite simple, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." The prayer is repeated unceasingly until it sort of becomes unconscious, the background music of one's life. But even that little practice is usually only undertaken with spiritual guidance because of the demonic dangers associated with hesychastic prayer and life. There is a constant possibility that what one is hearing is not the HS at all, but rather demons appearing as beings of light. The Greek Fathers say that the greatest of spiritual virtues is discernment and their writings are full of examples of people who otherwise appeared to be very holy, very advanced in theosis, people who believed themselves to be holy and advanced and yet they were unbeknownst to them in the clutches of demons and were destroyed. In Greek we call Satan "Ο Πονηρος", the Evil One with implications of slyness, like a fox is sly. Anyway, pray for discernment.
Amen.
Christ, who was an apocalyptic Jew, told His disciples that some of them will not even die (and that within this generation) the end will come.
Scripture please?
+Paul was an apocalyptic Jews and belieevd the "end" was at hand. That's why faith was much more important than works, as there was no time for works (of faith0 but faith itself was a priority. Of course, the generation passed and all who heard or thought they heard Christ predict the end (that part is neatly attenuated later on when He says that only the Father knows...oooh more Trinitarian discord) actually did die. The Chuch then had some 'splanin' to do. But they were always good at it. :)
No, the answer is found in Rom.11:25, 'until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in'
We don't know when that will be.
Why then, does Paul not scream from the mountain tops "Baptize your infants to save their souls while there's still time!!!"? In that case, if Paul thought it was imminent, then why does he say NOTHING of specifically baptizing infants before it's too late? In 1 Cor 1:16 he says that he "baptized the household of Stephanas." That doesn't preclude baptizing infants. Besides, he didn't think his mission was to baptize.
There is no record of any infants being baptized and Acts 8:37 gives the basis of being baptized, believing with all of thine heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
Says the historical reliablity of the Bible.
The reason for this is the inherent limitations of archaeology
Yeah, but believing that Jonah lived in the belly of a fish for three days and survived has no inherent limitations?
Actually it was a whale (Mat.12:40) and who said he lived?
Your lack of bible knowledge is quite remarkable.
But than again, you have your Church creeds, so who needs to learn what the Bible actually says-right?
To this we must add the limitation that less than 2% of sites in Israel have been excavated and hundreds more will never be excavated due to lack of access...
The Jews should have guarded their holy books and relics better I suppose. You'd think something wirtten by the hand of God would be guarded with greater care.
What they guarded was the most important-the Old Testament Canon of which we have the exact words.
I would tell you to read it but it is useless to someone who doesn't believe it or to one who isn't saved (1Cor.2:14)
Even when this small percentage of sites are excavated, only a fraction of the site is actually examined, and then only a percentage of what is excavated is ever published
Too bad, so sad. That is not a sufficient reason to accept biblical myths as facts.
No, it just means it will take more time and but you skeptics will still find reasons not to believe no matter how much evidence is brought forth.
See Luke 16 for details.
As the 21st century unfolds I believe that we will see much greater confirmations of the Bible from the archaeological remains
I guess we will just have to wait and see if that belief (hope, wish) is correct. Until then it should be recognized that it is someone's belief and not a fact.
And as Christ told Thomas, blessed is the man that hath not seen and yet have believed (Jn.21:29)
Nevertheless, the lines of evidence, which we have already presented, demonstrate the historical reliability of the Bible and defend its legitimacy as the Word of God for yet another generation of believers
Nonsense. If anything archeology has been dismantling biblical myths at an alarming rate.
Nonsense, archeology only is stating what hasn't been found-yet.
Nothing actually found has contradicted any Biblical truth.
Have you figured which way is up yet?
Why would I have a question for you since you didn't explain anything in the other posts that had anything to do with scripture?
Oh, that's right, you weren't dealing with scripture, you were explaining what the RCC teaches and one has nothing to do with the other.
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