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

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

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."

Are you stating this, or are you saying that your justification is contingent on works and that unless you continue throughout your life doing works you will lose your salvation.

By justification do you mean my worthiness of being a child of God in the strict sense that I am really not worthy regardless of all of the good I do, because after all it is a gift from God?

If that be the case, then my works do not mean a thing and cannot make me worthy of being a child of God in any way. So I would say anything I do does not justify me. Only Christ. Any Catholic properly taught would agree with me.

On the other-hand, if you are asking me if I can commit a mortal sin, like kill 10,000 children, and get to heaven because I still believe Christ forgives me and I could care less about the 10,000 lives I destroyed. Then my actions just turned my belief into a shadow - a mental sting - a mind game against God's mercy and I would break my relationship with the Holy Spirit. No longer would he indwell in me. I would reject God by my actions and false sense of infinite mercy. I would reject God's love and expect Christ to judge me as a lost soul who rejected Him for the reality of being able to kill 10,000 children with no remorse.

I have tried to be as straight forward as possible with you and have responded to your question without holding anything back. My answer is dependent upon your clarification of justification. Which sense of Justification are you talking about in the question you asked? The first or the second or both? Please answer this and like you said then we can get into ...

Is there a Biblical principle that says that one believer's prayers are greater than another's because of status or position? Since Mary is being venerated for what she did, this seems to be another works-based principle.

CHristianity has a lot of theat "works based principle". But to the question of scripture, sure: "For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much" (James 5:16)

When I see the words "Holy Mary, save me!", the last thing in the world I think of is a prayer request.

Yes, but you are not familiar with the Orthodox frame of reference. I put this plea in the context of the Incarnation and have no such confusion.

When you spend time with your children and in-laws it certainly takes away time with your wife

Time it takes, from something. Usually from some daily pursuits. But it does not take my love away: I am loving my wife by spending time with the people she loves. Martha had nothing to do with it, -- she was cooking in the kitchen, not praying to anyone.

Other than this has been advertised to me

Really? The first thing one would say about the saints is that we give them honor. Intercession is secondary. They are the martyrs who gave you your religion, and paid with their lives. Literally. Think about it.

Let me kibbitz here a bit. Think of me as John Madden (without the brains) (or looks) providing color commentary.

Is there a Biblical principle that says that one believer's prayers are greater than another's because of status or position?

I wouldn't know, but there's the experience of many. My dreadful supermarket tabloid-quality secret is that the REAL reason I'm catholic is that I always lose stuff and the prayers of St. Anthony of Padua are spectacularly effective when it comes to finding stuff. After the fiftieth or so time my car keys appear within ten seconds of my imploring the intercession of Anthony, all objections to appealing for the help fo the saints seem forced and formal.

Also "greater"? That's not the word that would have come to my mind, nor do I find myself thinking in terms of "status or position".

As to the phrasing of "St. Mary Save us" lingo, yeah, it makes me kind of lift my skirts too. But I have recently been in a tyranny, the Sheriff's Office, where you serve at the Sheriff's pleasure and there is no grievance procedure at ALL. So I get, after the flesh, the idea of saying to some sergeant, "Listen, You gotta do something. You have to tell the sheriff we just can't keep doing it this way." And after having done that a few times and had it "work", I can see saying, "Sarge, go do your stuff, PLEASE! Give us a break here!" So in the context of a series of interactions involving lots of intercessions and one remarkably effective intercessor, I think the phrasing is not as repellent "upon further review" as it is on its face.

Please remember. I'm not trying to convey an argument so much as a flavor here. I'm not going for capitulation but for something more like, "Yeah, if I had several martinis I could see how you might think that ...."

Okay, Mary and Martha and the good portion: This was totally ignored earlier, but for me, in my personal experience, I don not think I am NOT talking to God, just because I'm talking to you. A fortiori, I do not think that talking to Mary means I stopped talking to God. I don't say this as an argument, but as a report of experience. Further most of the time I do not view prayer as labor or as being "anxious about many things". On the contrario! The three high points of my Monday-through-Friday are when my schedule allows going to my parish church, praying a Rosary with the between 20 and 100 other people there, then celebrating Mass, beginning with the psalms and lections of evening prayer AND with a brief reflection or exposition of the readings by one of our stable of outstanding Dominicans.

I'm not doing this to impress God (as IF!) or to rack up credits in the indulgence account. It's more like going to the spa, (I imagine, never having gone to a spa.)

Okay, HERE's a metaphor, from water skiing: You know how when you let go of the rope you sort of scoot along on top of the water, then you stop, and you sink down, and the water comes up around you and envelopes you? That's what it's like! I get in the pew and on my knees, let go of the rope, and sink into the love and mystery. Then the whole thing is "the good portion".

And I think this may account for the sense of outrage when people make contemptuous and disparaging remarks about our devotional behavior.

My wife and I had fertility issues and finally were blessed with a daughter, who (not counting the year she was 13, when she was possessed by hormonal demons) has been a nonpareil blessing!

The sorrow of sub-fertility, the joy of a pregnancy that did not end two or three days after it was noticed, the miracle of the birth, the, how shall I say it, honor of staggering our of bed at 2 am to perform routine personal baby maintenance, plug the kid into the mama, wake up, repeat routine baby maintenance, put kid back in crib ... All that could be made fun of. One could use really very nasty language indeed about the activity we politely call "trying to have a baby," and to do so would be to display a really horrible and disgusting coarseness and complete insensitivity to our personal pain and, more importantly, to the wonder of being invited to cooperate with God in the development of a new candidate for His miraculous Grace.

So when some smart alec talks about our "droning" our way through rosaries and so on and contemptuously compares what we do to Tibetan prayer wheels, my gut reaction is not far from the one I would have if somebody made fun of what my wife and I went through.

In both cases, someone who saw only "externals" would be mocking "internals" of amazing profundity and would be stabbing at a place where we are most easily wounded. That's the stuff of which "Holy Wars" are made.

Enough. There's something else I should be doing.

If I am already justified, then it really doesn't matter what I think right now about the whole thing, now, does it? Thus, if I had your point of view, sanctification serves no purpose, since I will instantly be beamed into heaven, no matter what I subsequently do. What exactly is the purpose of sanctification in your theology? There is NO PARTIAL or BARELY being saved in "faith alone" theology. Christ covers ALL with His righteousness (according to you). Thus, sanctification on earth doesn't matter... As long as I ONCE believed.

Hi jo kus.

Sanctification is the process of growth toward godliness ... in the lives of those that believe (i.e. have faith).

It is God's desire that His children grow in grace ... as it is our desire that our children grow in character and maturity.

Sanctification also accomplishes (through our service) ... God's purposes in the world (to some extent).

And I would say that such relationship with God requires continuing faith.
Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.