Nectar of the Scottish Gods!
What a grand idea!
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/
If you tell me I am wrong, I am gonna start drinking (not that there's anything wrong with that)
I'm sure that we are in agreement that the dead are not gone, just not with us in the flesh anymore.
So your position (just asking for verification) is regardless of their current vitality, once folks have died, you cain't ask 'em for stuff. And ours is that the communion of saints is all around us, a cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, and all that.
That is the crux of our difference. The verse about the cloud of wittnesses is a verse about the faith of said wittnesses being a testimony to us, not that they are all watching us. Obviously in Revelation John was able to see things on earth but the vision was both spiriutalized and confusing chronologically. But even from that Heavenly view there is no evidence of any of the citizens of heaven receiving communications from the Earth and passing them up hill.
The bigger issue is that the bible gives us prayer in an excellent form. We pray directly to the Father in the name of His Son. To put that aside or to think that needs to be supplemented is a very sad statement.
I don't see a brige across this. Do you?
There is never a bridge between fundies and RC's but we still have fun comparing notes.
Yeah, you're right. The question is one in geometry not angelology. And I'm going to stop counting now.
Nor does the Bible instruct us to face East when we pray, or to mark ourselves with the sign of the Cross, whether by gesture or by wearing a small cross (from ancient times usually wrought of precious metal or bejeweled as a sign Christ's triumph on the Cross), but Christians have always done so.
It doesn't leaving us to know for a certainty that the rock was the profession and that the church was build on the profession of who Jesus is. In that way Jesus is exalted rather than Peter, which the whole bible does support.
Nectar of the Scottish Gods!
What a grand idea!
Always find your input valuable. :-)
Tts 1:5 For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: (KJV)
Also, the laying on of hands (ordaining leaders) was after the selection had been made,by the congregation. The point being, the Apostles did not hand pick the leaders of the churches they helped start. They were missionaries. Thus the claim of a special status (Apostolic Succession) of church leadership rests in the "laying on of hands" and the question really is why would the laying on of hands by RC's and EO be any different than that done by other Christian sects?
"...and the question really is why would the laying on of hands by RC's and EO be any different than that done by other Christian sects?"
Because you people left The Church and your leaders have no valid ordinations? Just a thought.
Actually, in English usage, 'priest' is used for what in Greek is called 'presbyter'. So, for example, the honorific for senior married presbyters (or, by your leave, since we don't speak Greek, priests), Protopresbyter, is Englished as Archpriest, and even in English translations of the Liturgy, one finds prayers for "the presbytery, the diaconate and all the clergy and the people" just after prayers for the bishop.
'Elder' is a more imprecise translation, since it would more naturally correspond to 'geron', than to 'presbyteros', and 'bishop' would correspond to 'episcopos', so the most accurate translation into English for the word St. Paul used in writing to Titus is 'priest', since that is the English word which applies to the office called 'presbyteros' in Greek.
Jsutin cased you were gonna tell me I was wrong, I was gonna play this as loud as possible and drown you out...from the best drummer ever...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcqoB_QICxA&mode=related&search=
FWIW, from the RC Catechism
424 Moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. On the rock of this faith confessed by St. Peter, Christ built his Church.
Pretty easy to see that the rock of this faith confessed by Peter was that Jesus is the Christ, the SON OF GOD.
Retsina breath, how could you ? :)
It begs the question, do you CONTROL the HOLY SPIRIT, or does the HOLY SPIRIT indwell all believers?
* No. That doesn't mean that. If you go to Hell, it is because you chose that place for yourself by your free will actions and God gives us what we want
that there would be an endless line from him and that they would be known as the pope, that they would reign from Rome, that anything they said was equal to scripture, that they would add all doctrines Marion ...
*We have no Doctrines about John Wayne ('cept, provisionally, most theologians don't think he was gay)
The bible would have some shred of support elsewhere.
*It does. But, why aren't these words from from Jesus enough for you?
It doesn't leaving us to know for a certainty that the rock was the profession and that the church was build on the profession of who Jesus is.
*As Eck said to Luther, "It is both. Rock and Confession.
In that way Jesus is exalted rather than Peter, which the whole bible does support.
*Well, um, yes. That is one of the truths retained by those who went out from us in the 16th Century.
*As Eck said to Luther IT IS BOTH
Oh please, the misuse of that verse is the entire foundation of the whole pope thing.
That seems to have been unresponsive.
And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looking upon him, said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter.
*The very first time Jesus met Simon, He told him He would change his name to ROCK.
Do you think Jesus just went about, like John Belushi in Animal House, giving nicknames to new pledges?
Come on...This is serious business>
Try to IMAGINE the SHOCK when Jesus said this...who had EVER been called Peter in Palestine prior to this?
Nobody. No...body.Think about how this name change signified the fact that Jesus was not only going to give him a new name but a new function...
was so..
Actually, I think you're being too hard on the KJV. The New Testament, was at least translated from the Textus Receptus, although, like all protestant translations, there is the problem of the Old Testament being translated from the Masorete, rather than the LXX--save the crucial passage of Isaiah, where 'virgin' corresponds to 'parthenos' in the LXX.
Other protestant translations have embrace the enthusiams for a hypothetical 'ur-text', and perpetrate such outrages as removing Christ's self-designation as 'the Son of God' in his discussion with the man born blind after his healing, replacing it with 'the Son of Man'--admittedly a name Our Lord used for Himself, but *not* at that moment, where the Church's Scriptures tell he explicitly claimed His Divine Sonship in the wake the sign the Fathers tell us was *the creation of eyes for the man*, and thus, with the raising of Lazarus, four days dead, the clearest proof of His Divinity offered by an action in His earthly minstry.
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