'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | 12/4/2006 | John-Henry Westen

[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/

[D-fendr]

"she was the mother of our "Lord"…

Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Word become flesh...

If you mean to say by "Lord" the same as God Incarnate; God, The Son, then I don't see the difference here. If not, aren't you introducing a fourth person?

Do you see my point?

[Forest Keeper]

Jesus' brothers were not believers at this point. They became believers after He appeared to them resurrected. To this point (the crucifixion) ... the brothers had only demonstrated their unbelief and animosity to His ministry. [See John 7]

Excellent. I thought this must have been the case, but I didn't have the goods to back it up. :) Thanks.

If Jesus truly honored His mother, ... why would He place (or allow) her in the care of such as these ... when He had a loving disciple standing right at hand.

Clearly He would not have, nor should He have. In this argument, it sounds like we have one side arguing for one interpretation of the letter of the Law, and the other side arguing for a common sense approach to the Spirit of the letter of the Law. On this one, perhaps I do have the goods :) -

Luke 14:1-6 : 1 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?" 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away. 5 Then he asked them, "If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?" 6 And they had nothing to say.

The Spirit of the Law was not to FORCE widows upon their children, if the widow was already well provided for. Jesus made such arrangements.

[bornacatholic]

Yes. Of COURSE. Jesus KNEW His brothers and sisters would remain unbelievers even AFTER they saw Him after the Resurrection so he sent ol Mom to John.

It makes sense once we just break it down...

[Forest Keeper]

[Kosta:] "Touching that which is holy would desecrate it"

Would someone please give the citation for this proposition?

When I was GUESSING at what Kosta meant, I thought it could have been along the lines of:

Num. 4:15 : "After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, and when the camp is ready to move, the Kohathites are to come to do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy things or they will die. The Kohathites are to carry those things that are in the Tent of Meeting.

We saw what happened to Uzzah after touching the Ark in 2 Samuel 6:6-7. I thought maybe Kosta was implying that the reason for God's reaction was a desecration of the holy thing. But I was just speculating. In any event, I don't see how this could possibly apply to a person, especially Mary (or Jesus for that matter). It's not possible that both never embraced, hugged, kissed, another for their entire lives. For one thing we know that Jesus invited Thomas to touch Him. We also have 1 John 1:1. There must be many more examples.

[Forest Keeper]

Sorry I forgot to ping you to 1764. I almost stole your "bubble" line. :)

[Kolokotronis]

I'm glad you clarified your earlier post! I was getting ready to post "NESTORIANISM". :)

[HarleyD]

Frankly, no, I do not see your point. If you want to say that the Lord was "born" of Mary, then you're essentially saying our Lord Jesus did not exist prior to Mary. I doubt if you would want to make that claim.

If you want to say the Lord did not have a physical appearance prior to Mary, then you negate all the physical descriptions of the Lord throughout the Old Testament.

Exd 24:10-11 And they saw the God of Israel: and [there was] under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in [his] clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.

People obviously ate and drank with Christ prior to the Incarnation so that can't be right. However, no one that I know of run around with sapphires under their toes. Of course I might be running with the wrong crowd.

At the risk of minimizing the Incarnation, the only thing that happened was our Lord Jesus took on the form of us, identifying Himself physically with His creatures. Still God, but now man. How precisely He did this is a mystery but He chose to do it through a virgin; a virgin who needed a Savior just like everyone else for we all have sinned and fall short. Mary and Joseph didn't even have a chose in naming Him.

Now why you would like to believe Mary was sinless I don't know. Our Lord Jesus chose to be thrown into a fithy, vile, corrupt environment for 33 years; tempted in every way (probably more) than we are, yet without sin. Why Catholics think Mary had to be a pure environment so that our Lord Jesus could come into this world is the real mystery.

What do you mean by the "Mother of God"?

[redgolum]

Because it (IMO) better describes what the council was trying to say. Mary being the Mother of God has little to do with Mary, the whole focus was on who Jesus was. Jesus is True God and True Man, and Mary was His mother. So, since Jesus is one person, and Mary is His mother, you can call her Mother (or Bearer) of God. It never meant that Mary was the source of the second person of the Trinity, but that Jesus really was true man and true God from the moment of conception.

[Blogger]

I think the impetus falls on whom is responsible for Jesus' Godhood.Jesus was God eternally preexistent to Mary. Mary was one of Jesus' creations. She is infinitely inferior to Jesus as are all human beings. She contributed ZERO to His deity. Did incarnate God pass through Mary's birth canal? Yes. But not because Mary gave birth to God (as in gave Him His beginning). Mary gave birth to the incarnation of God as MAN. She contributed to His humanity, but not His divinity because had she never given birth He would have still been 100% God. After His death on the cross, He was still alive as God since He raised Himself from the Grave and a human being can not do that. (The question of who raised Jesus from the Grave is actually a great Trinity proof text since the Bible says that the Father raised Jesus, the Son raised Himself, and the Holy Spirit raised Jesus). My point is, there was never a point where Jesus as God had a beginning. He never had an ending as God. God does not have a Mother. The 2nd Person of the Trinity had a mother in his incarnation as Man - but had no mother in his personhood as God. So, as I've said elsewhere on the thread, calling Mary the "Mother of God" is unnecessarily confusing (as I know you all do not mean that she gave God his beginning as God) and everyone ought to call her what Scripture calls her and no more - Mother of Jesus and blessed.

[Blogger]

But Mary was only the "source" of the 2nd person of the Trinity insofar as He was Man. So why not call her that? Why insist on calling her Mother of God? She didn't give God His beginning. She was mother of Jesus as Man (even while His deity was left intact). The Bible calls her Mother of Jesus. It does not call her Mother of God. This does not in any way take away from Jesus' deity. It does however keep Mary from being put in the potentially misleading position of preexisting Christ as God.

[Blogger]

I'm sure you were :)

I tried to be quite careful about what I was saying.

[Blogger]

Not to ignorant and untrained ears. To natural ears. You change the definition of Mother to get where you are getting. I don't mean to be crude here which is why I'm taking it out of the Mary context. Here is a story for you. September 1726: The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits
Mary Toft
18th-century depiction of Mary Toft
Mary Toft, a young woman in the town of Godalming located in the south of England, began to give birth to rabbits. Her condition soon attracted the attention of medical doctors who watched, to their amazement, as she produced one rabbit after another. The King sent his personal physicians to witness the phenomenon, and they reported back that it was not a fraud. Mary was transported to London, but under constant supervision she failed to produce any more rabbits. Sir Richard Manningham declared that he should surgically examine her to determine where the rabbits were coming from, and at that point she confessed that she had been putting them there herself when no one was looking. Remarkably, a year later she reportedly gave birth to a healthy human baby, despite the damage that she must have done to herself in the course of the rabbit deception.

Now this incident was obviously a hoax (and a very sick one at that); and I will admit that it is an awful illustration to try to make my point (but please take it for the point that I'm trying to make not for the crudity of the illustration). The rabbits were already rabbits before they were in her body. But, because they passed through her body, does this make her the Mother of the Rabbits? Of course not. First, she placed them there (whereas the Holy Spirit placed the incarnate Christ into Mary's womb through miraculous means). Second, she contributed NOTHING to their being rabbits or beginning (Just a Mary contributed NOTHING to Jesus's deity which existed before he was ever in her womb). Mary's womb was a vessel that God chose to dwell in for 9 months. In that way, it was no different than a house for God. However, in the miracle of the incarnation God became a Man. This aspect of his nature is what Mary contributed to. Not his deity. She gave him no beginning. She gave him not one shred of His deity. She contributed NOTHING to His being God. He passed through her birth canal to become a man. She contributed to His humanity. As God, he needed no physical nourishment. As man, he took nourishment from her blood supply in the womb and from her body outside of the womb. Yes, her Son was indeed God - but the emphasis should eternally be upon Him and not on Mary. If you want to say that Mary is mother of Jesus who was God - I have no objection. To take the emphasis off of Christ, however, and use a phrase like Mary mother of God, I do take issue.

[P-Marlowe]

But they must not touch the holy things or they will die.

Maybe Joseph accidentally touched Mary and died and that is why he wasn't mentioned after the incident when Jesus was 12. And maybe Jesus wore gloves when he healed people. And maybe Thomas didn't actually touch Jesus, maybe he put his hand in the holes. Maybe the holes were big enough or maybe Thomas had on surgical gloves.

Speculation is so much fun when you don't have to prove it up by scripture.

[xzins]

So why do you support the heresy of patripassionism?

It strikes me that when you level the charge of heresy at those who wish to be specific about the Son, that you are quick to level heresy charges.

Therefore, Mary is not the mother of the Father. It was not the Father who died on the cross.

Why do you keep saying that they did? You clearly said that Mary is the Mother of God. You clearly said that God died on the cross.

Yet, when I say it was the incarnate 2d person of the Godhead who died on the cross, you ask me why I deny that Jesus is God.

Post #1677 I said: By definition, God cannot die. The incarnate 2d person of the Trinity died on the cross of Calvary.

You replied: So are you denying that Jesus Christ is God?

I can only conclude that you deny the Father is God (AND that the HS is God), or you are playing some silly little "gotcha" game based on the imprecision of the word "God" in a Trinitarian system.

If the former, you are a heretic. If the latter, you are spoiled, ego-deprived, or hypocritical.

Stop the silliness. Grow up.

[kosta50]

I understand your argument, and so did the Church when Arius and Nestor were around. It was Nestor who said she was Christotokos (the bearer of the Savior).

But that is incomplete and false. Mary carried Incarnate God the Word in her womb and gave birth to the Incarnate God the Word ad named Him Jesus. Nevertheless, He was still the same God the Word, Who was born of Vrigin Mary.

Calling her the Mother of God does not say that she gave God the Word a beginning. It merely reflects accurately Bibilical teaching that she carried Him in her womb and bore Him after nine months. Saying she gave birth to Man Jesus is to diminish, indeed deny, His divinity, as Nestor did.

[kosta50]

I don't see how this could possibly apply to a person, especially Mary

It applies to Mary's womb. As I said, where God dwells in Person is Holy of Holies. In order for her to have other children, that Holy of Holies would have to be occupied by ordinary humans.

[xzins]

To say "Mary gave birth to Jesus" is not to deny His divinity.

That's pure, unadulterated silliness.

It makes the bible guilty of nestorianism.

People are just playing "gotcha" with the imprecision of the general word "God" in a trinitarian system.

It's not helpful at all. There is nothing wrong with specificity in one's writing.

[kosta50]

That's pure, unadulterated silliness

Pure and unadultereted silliness is denying that Mary carried and gave birth to God the Word.

Your semantic acrobatics deny Jesus' divinity. That's all.

[redgolum]

Because to state it as you did, leads to what the council was called for in the first place. It was to confront two types of heresies. The first that Jesus Christ was in reality to individuals, a man and God (this later was called Nestorian). The second was that he was either man or God, but not both. To call Mary only the mother of the human Jesus, but not the second person in the Trinity, implies that Jesus was not true man and true God in one individual. So, for the Incarnation to be what most orthodox (lower case o) Christians believe it to be, Mary had to be the mother of God, but she is not any type of deity herself. To state that she was only the mother of the man Jesus splits the person of Christ.

I will admit, the title "Mother of God" can lead to some rather disastrous excesses in folk religion, but to go the other way leads to saying that Jesus was not really true Man and true God. Kosta probably has a link to the council that decreed the title "Mary Mother of God", and I would suggest reading a book on the early Church theology like this one by Jarslov Pelikan.

http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Tradition-Development-Doctrine-Emergence/dp/0226653714/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104-6132202-4845522

It walks you through the early Christlogical controversies and why some of the things were phrased they way they are.

[xzins]

Horse-pucky.

The one doing self-serving, semantic gymnastics are those who pretend that a person being specific is a person who doesn't understand the Trinity.

Quit the "gotcha" crap, and grow up.