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/
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! NO WAY.
I suspect that even in your system . . . the statement has been made some time or other that
ORDINATION AND CONFIRMATION are merely human system confirmations of
WHAT HOLY SPIRIT HAS ALREADY DONE.
i.e. thoughtful flattering rubber stamping what Holy Spirit has already done . . . so that the officials feel like they earn their keep and the flock have all the formal accoutraments to clearly detect someone super kosher--especially according to man's sanction--vs someone 'merely' Holy Spirit alone seems to sanction.
I mean, we have to have something for the gold braid makers and the gold floss weavers to do.
Lovely zing, that. Very slick.
Methinks the criteria is grossly flawed.
Oh, I think satire is greatly fitting in religious discussions . . . as did Christ.
I have no clue what you're going on about here: Then you post a reference to sacramental introduction in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, do not notice it in the text, and say you claim no credentials.
Credentials can be significant and important in some settings. But mostly I don't put much stock in them nor bow to them. Either someone has something fruitful for me, or they don't. Plenty of highly credentialed people have been not only fruitless but destructive. And many humble farmers with a 6th grade education have taught me degrees worth.
Besides, in Christianity, Holy Spirit is more than sufficient at Sanctioning a person, an action, an idea. He did, after all, manage to create all and ongoingly sustain all. He knows the thoughts and intents of each heart and mind. I think He is very up to the task--and that I'd be an insulting idiot to avoid paying attention to Him.
And having paid attention to Him, to then put more stock in what a mortal said would be an insult to Holy Spirit.
Simple, but then, perhaps I'm not capable enough of logical thought according to some standards.
I get that you disagree. Typographical fireworks only raise the ambient temperature, leading to more heat than light. They do not persuade me of anything but rather tempt me to make judgments I ought not to make.
Gave with their lives . . .
Uhhhhhhhhhh. . . Christ at one point declared that John was the greatest born of women. But that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven was greater than he.
Then when John sent from prison not long before his death . . . to know whether Christ was really the Messiah, Christ was somewhat compassionate enough to provide a type of an answer--see the miracles--essentially--but in a sense, He was also somewhat detached. He did not belabor John's contribution nor his impending martyrdom.
Of course, all kinds of groups do all kinds of things contrary to Christ's model and exampole. We wouldn't want to claim the RC edifice was out of THAT group! LOL.
We have similar sensibilities on our side.
But I don't think God is near (if at all) as fussed up about our sensibilities as we are.
But when our sensibilities and biases blind us to truth . . . there is a problem. And God can care a lot about that.
The objective is to nudge my brothers and sisters in Christ in their walk with the Lord.
= = =
Which you persistently, by His Grace, do masterfully and charitably. Please keep up the Great Work.
[Love to foster your laughter.]
Not sure if I'd consider that a perceptual problem or a sensibilities problem. Probably the latter.
But then all of us choose what we get all fussed up about.
Truly, Schroeder has broken the age of the universe into days, which I aver is entirely appropriate since reconciling Genesis 1 and physical evidence in nature was his objective - and God spoke Genesis 1 in terms of days and notably, the first day.
It is the observer problem again - I agree with Schroeder and assert we ought to be reading Genesis 1 with God as the observer, not man.
Your point about sun and vegetation does not hold if we accept that the Genesis account refers to the creation of not the physical realm alone, but both the physical and the spiritual realms (emphasis mine):
These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground. - Genesis 2:4-5
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. - Gen 2:9
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. - Rev 2:7
My assertion is that he was created in heaven, in the spiritual realm, and placed in the Garden of Eden there. His “clock” began running when he was banished to mortality in Genesis 3.
The sixth day from the inception space/time coordinates is a quarter billion years ago from our space/time coordinates (Scripture and inflationary theory and relativity.)
On the Adamic clock (our space/time coordinates) - the day in which Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the first 1,000 years of the 7,000 allotted to Adamic man – the last 1,000 is Christ’s millennial reign to come. (Emphasis mine)
Rather, Adam died at age 930 in the first 1,000 year “day” according to Scripture which corresponds to Creation week. Or to put it another way, 6 days of creation plus 1 day of rest corresponds to 6,000 years of Adamic man plus 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth (the Messiah era.)
That is the Jewish interpretation (Sanhedrin 97a; Avodah Zarah Sa) of this Psalm attributed to Moses:
The way all of this reconciles beautifully is the assertion that the Creation was not just the physical realm, but the spiritual realm as well. (Gen 1:1) The Garden of Eden, like the Temple, is in the Spiritual realm (albeit in both cases there is a “type” in the physical realm.)
By tradition, the Jewish Kaballah was passed down orally from Adam to now and the secrets of it - in particular the powers associated with certain sounds - were never to be written. Some (but not all) of the Kaballist mysticism was recorded centuries ago - and even now some aver to reveal these ancient oral secrets.
But I do not dismiss the Jewish Kaballah out-of-hand because I lean on the indwelling Spirit to guide me into Truth. As an example, the teaching that the firmament is a boundary and not a geometric location per se is Kaballistic in origin. And that rings true in the Spirit. But the extension of it, that the firmament is the speed of light neither rings true nor false for me.
Likewise, I suspect that much of what has been captured for millennia in the pseudepigraphral manuscripts have their origin in this Jewish oral tradition.
Some of these are directly referenced in Scripture, such as in Jude – others are carried forward in tradition. But in any case, the Spirit draws me to certain points in the pseudepigraphal books – such as what provoked Abraham to be called by God, how Job got into a mess with Satan, the back story of Genesis 6 and the Noah Flood and so on. And likewise, I am drawn to certain teaching of the Jewish Kaballah.
Personally i like Christ paralells...
when one of these diverges form what Christ said Christ' version wins for me...
thats hilareous.
protestants reject the oral tradition which Christ and the apostles gave us but find the aledged oral tradition of the first sinner to be 'fascinating'.
speaks volumes
In fencing matches this behavior would lead to an ejection from the piste. Here leaping roughshod on the sensitivities of others, refusing to show the least comprehension of each other's point of view is implausibly attributed to an excess of love for the person one is abusing.
It's very like the way Democrats do social programs. The intention is noble so the outcomes don't matter. And this is explained as an example of "fruits of the Spirit".
Holding Christ pre-eminent is certainly a winning preference, in my book.
Will prayerfully ponder your thoughtful exhortation more.
My initial response is that there's entirely far too much thin skinned pride and brittleness in most RELIGIOUS circles and discussions.
Christ sliced through such rather brazenly, typically, and usually the slice was kattywumpus to what others would have predicted a slice should have been.
If something's not true--it's not true. It may be dramatically and horrendously and devastatingly not true--but it's just not true. I can treat it as just not true or I can get all energized about it not being true. My choice.
The same is true about whether I construe something as insulting, insufferable, blasphemous-to-me, an outrageous affront to my current most cherished icon or idol or champion; or whatever such. I choose the focus, the perspective and the attitude.
I could, imho, legitimately, Biblically be utterly outraged and foaming at the mouth ranting over every "MOTHER OF GOD" phrase I read hereon--because I see it as an outrageous TEN COMMANDMENT VIOLATING affront to my Lord Jesus The Christ. But I don't. I understand that for at least many RC folks, such is an aid, however mystifyingly to me, an aid instead of a violation in their Christian walk.
The obliviousness to the spiritual and Biblical hazard is beyond me, however--and one which I feel constrained in my mind and spirit to continue to pontificate about.
And, in my construction on reality, as long as my heart is right . . . lots of things are fair in love and war and religious 'dialogue' . . . exchanges, holding forths-ings . . . . . . . especially if there's a chance that something startling will provoke a new thought, a new perspective, a new openness to Holy Spirit's wooing and leading into all truth.
CHRIST WAS BRAZENLY AFFRONTIVE in most things He said--particularly to the religious pontificators of the day.
I'm happy to follow in His model, pattern, way.
however flawdly.
Just for the record, unless I specify differently in the post, the bulk of my posts refer to the Reformation or Protestants as characterized by some form of belief in Bible Alone, Faith Alone, and individual salvation preceding sanctification (goes by Once Saved - Always Saved, or Perseverance of the Saints) as these are your defining heresies. The additional heresy of Predestination of the Reprobate is indeed found in a subgroup only.
what abpout neo anabaptistism?
And it is commendable and a fruit of the Spirit to come into a thread and pretend to be about having a conversation or a debate when the real intention is to accuse and blame and offend? So Jesus lauds dishonesty as well as needless hostility.
And when you use offensive language with the intention of causing people to be offended and the targets of your abuse get offended it's their choice.
Wow.
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