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/
Faith is "hope of things unseen" as the Apostle says. Mysteries are not ours to explain or to decipher. If one read everything literally, then a lot of things in the Bible don't make much sense.
Why would St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary even consider having other children when their Child was THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON WHO WILL EVER LIVE?
You are preaching to the choir, dear friend. Apparently our me-me-me egalitarian bible-only Christians feel that even the Lord wasn't the Alpha and Omega of anyone's life, even of His Parents, and that they would have stopped being intoxicated with love for their awesome Gift and considered other pleasures. How typically fallen!
I was mainly talking about the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.
The Church (both East and West) teaches, and has always taught that our Lord's Birth was a mystery just as His Incarnation is. We do not usually go into "fine" details of just "how" mysteries of God happen.
The Church does teach that the birth canal remained closed and her virginity (the "seal") was preserved. You are free to use tour imagination to "figure out" how one can be born "naturally" (as the Protestants believe) through a closed birth canal without violating someone's virginity, but it is not a "natural" birth.
But of course. And conversely, note that when the scribes assault Christ's authority they point that he is one of many brethren:
55 Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude: 56 And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence therefore hath he all these things?
For Catholic it is solely Jesus Christ Who gave us his Church, which gave us, and you, the Scripture.
Thanks, WmF. I figured that this "tradition" prong required a bit of cherry-picking so far as the perpetual virginity was concerned. Doesn't sound like it's a solid case across the board, does it?
Perpetual virginity is the dogma of the Church of the Seven councils, specifically Chalcedon, as you yourself quoted. The physiological details are not defined by the Catholic Church either, but it is a common and logical opinion taught by the Catholic doctors that Our Lady remained miraculously intact in the physiological sense and was spared the birth pains, as well as remained virgin in the social sense. Jo, please correct if I am wrong.
It is naive, that is all. In a culture as painfully impoverished as ours is, people begin to see Mary in grill cheese sandwiches.
If we had as Christian a culture as we claim to be there would be an image of the Mother of God at every bus stop.
One thing Grill Sandwich Madonnas prove is that we are not idolaters, because obviously no one kneeling to a grill sandwich does so in order to worship the cheese.
Your are so wrong on this. First, the "born without sin" is a bone of contention between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologies. The Orthodox hold and have always held that Mary was an ordinary human being from birth until her death. The only extraordinary thing about her, which is what makes her the saint of saints, is her complete devotion and unwavering love for God.
It was through her devotion and love that she chose not to sin and remained pure in her heart all her life. We do not subscribe to the Immaculate Conception because we do not subscribe to the idea of the "original sin" as the West does, which necessitates the dogma of Immaculate Conception.
In other words, in addition of her awesome task of having been chosen to care for our Savior, Mary is also revered as a saint, not goddess, ads an example and hope for all of us to follow by loving God more than anything, first and foremost.
Frankly, the Protestant portrayal even of Christ appears frighteningly humanized, with the impression that the only thing "holy" about God is His awesome power, and our "devotion" to Him is an opportunistic rather than a loving approach, bordering on duty, along with " retirement benefits." It doesn't come from the heart, but from fear and selfishness. That's just my opinion.
"The fact that "adelphos" was used to indicate spiritual kinship in absence of blood relation is alone a good reason not not replace it with the specific designation like xanadelphos or syggenos when applied to disciples who are also blood relatives."
You did not look at the verses that specifically identify apostles, disciples and brothers by distinctive words.
However there is a better reason for identifying them as the brothers and sisters of Jesus and that is the consistancy with which Luke, a Greek from Troas, uses the word in two letters to the same person. As mentioned in his first letter to Theophilus (the Gospel of Luke) he uses the word "suggenes" for cousin (Luke 1:36.) In the same letter he uses the term adelphos for brother when referring to Peter and Andrew (Luke 6:14) and Judas and James (Luke6:16). In Luke 8:19 he refers to Jesus' brothers using the same term that he had used for the previous brothers but not for Elizabeth.
In his second letter to Theophilus (the book of Acts) Luke again uses the term adelphos to refer to Jesus' brothers (Acts 1:13-14) that he uses for James the brother of John (Acts 12:2). When he uses the term adelphos to refer to members of a community there isn't any question because of the context i.e. they are being addressed or used as an illustration, not for filial identification.
We discussed that, did we not?
In the case of a saint, the Church tells us that he is hearing our prayer in heaven. In the case of someone not canonized, we pray for their intercession assuming that they are in heaven. If they are in fact not there, the prayer has no effect, that is all. Likewise, in the case of a prayer for a dead person, it is only effective if the person is in purgatory; if he is in heaven or hell, the prayer has no effect on them. It still has an effect on us, as a charitable effort, albeit fruitless.
Origen was in his heart never a Christian. His later embrace of Gnosticism proves it.
You also must understand that no particular Father of the Church (and Origne is not one of them) could never decide what the whole Church believed. That was plainly made clear at Ecumenical Councils, who spoke on behalf of the whole Church based on what is know as the consensus patrium.
If Mary is born with a sin nature according to the Orthodox, then my discussion is not with them.
The point remains for those who do accept that she was born without sin and that she did not sin.
Since Jesus, the Lamb of God, paid for the sins of the entire world, then there was nothing preventing Mary from being assumed into heaven. The assumption is Catholic teaching, therefore, it is consistent. They had to have her assumed since they had her entirely sin free.
The only reason Jesus died was because He took upon himself the sin of the entire. That task being accomplished, there was no reason for Mary to die which is the penalty for sin. (The wages of sin is death...)
The Holy Tradition never, ever taught that Christ jumped out of Mary head or any such nonsense. The only misunderstanding comes from (obviously deliberate) distortion and caricature of what the Church clear believed and taught all along.
Excellent points!
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