How else? Has my education been deficient in some manner?
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/
Do you think Christ would have lived no less of a consecrated life had He married and had children?
-A8
The following from my previous post would seem to indicate this:
But especially on the feast of her conception (December 9 in the Byzantine Church) is her immaculateness stressed: "This day, O faithful, from saintly parents begins to take being the spotless lamb, the most pure tabernacle, Mary..."; "She is conceived...the only immaculate one"; "or "Having conceived the most pure dove, Anne filled...." [References: From the Office of Matins, the Third Ode of the Canon for the feast; From the Office of Matins, the Stanzas during the Seating, for the same feast; From the Office of Matins, the Sixth Ode of the Canon for the same feast.]This also agrees with the following statement from Orthodox Wiki:
The Orthodox Church does not accept the teaching of the Immaculate Conception, but has also always believed that the Virgin Mary was, from her conception, filled with every Grace of the Holy Spirit in view of her calling as the Mother of Christ our God.I will leave for the moment how being filled with Grace from the moment of her conception does or does not differ from the Catholic idea of the Immaculate Conception. For the now can we agree that Mary was indeed, unlike the rest of us, conceived filled with Grace?
In Orthodoxy, we are always made to feel as part of the Church in the most personal way. Heaven on earth is what Divine Liturgy is (if you participate in it), and as you say, we are always close to it. We kiss our icons as we would kiss the pictures of our dearest and most beloved family members. Our Church is more than a house of worship; it is our true home.
"does any Divine Liturgy, or Hours, or any of the Father, say that she was purified at the moment of her conception."
I have studied the texts of the feast of the Conception of the Theotokos carefully, repeatedly, and extensively.
There is no question in my mind that there is no evidence whatsoever in the texts to support the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as conceived (pun intended) by Roman Catholicism.
There is some shared terminology that could allow a Roman Catholic to read the I.C. into a few bits (as Petrosius's quotations demonstrate.) Unfortunately for those who would wish to do this, there are some fundamental problems.
1. Orthodox Christians believe that *all* humans are conceived without any spot or stain in the sense that there is no sin deserving of punishment present at the time of anyone's conception. All, including the Theotokos, are born with the effects of the ancestral sin -- i.e. the tendency to corruption and death. The Theotokos was born exactly the same as we are, and she grew old and died because the effects of the ancestral sin were present in her body.
2. We call the Theotokos immaculate because of her immaculate life. Orthodox hymnology is timeless, so characteristics that were manifested at the end of her life can be transferred to the beginning of her life. Consider the obvious fact that the hymnology refers to her as the Theotokos, etc. Obviously, this does not mean that she had already borne Christ. A future characteristic or event is transferred timelessly to the time of her conception in the hymnology.
3. If the Church were teaching the Immaculate Conception in the hymnology of the Eastern Church, then (besides the obvious point that the Eastern Church would know this about her own hymnology and have theology reflecting it) this is such a momentous thing that we would expect the hymnology to be filled with explicit, repeated statements of the wonders of the Immaculate Conception. Anyone who is even a little bit familiar with Orthodox liturgics and hymnology knows this to be true. Nothing is left to chance in our services -- nothing of any importance whatsoeveris left open to the possibility of misinterpretation.
Quite the contrary, the repeated themes of the hymnology of that feast (I'm so familiar with it that I don't even need to pull the book off the shelf to pontificate) emphasize two things: the miraculous nature of her conception to an elderly couple thought to be barren; and the fact that she would grow up to be the mother of Jesus Christ.
If the circumstances surrounding her conception were unique in the history of humankind, as the I.C. dictates, the hymnology would read very, very differently.
How else? Has my education been deficient in some manner?
Today is also the feast of the Conception of The Most Holy Theotokos by +Anna. But our prayers have a different focus than those of your Byzantine Rite.
Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
Against all hope, the bonds of barrenness are loosed today. For, God has hearkened unto Joachim and Anna clearly promising that they would bear a godly maiden. He who commanded the angel to cry out to her, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you," will be born of her, the infinite One Himself, becoming man.
Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
Today the world rejoices in the conception of Anna, wrought by God. For she bore the One who beyond comprehension conceived the Logos.
Do you suppose that the prayers in your Byzantine Rite reflect a Latinization of that particular church?
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
See also Paul's commentary concerning Peter in Galatians 1 & 2. Peter is seen as a pillar of the church but no more a pillar than James and John. Peter is also in Jerusalem when Paul visits, not Rome. Peter then goes to Antioch. You never see Peter at Rome.
That Peter and Paul were both martyred by Nero is probable. (It is tradition rather than scripture, but I think it is likely a true tradition unlike Jesus's age at death which is clearly false.)
If.
Since I'm allowed the hypothetical, then I can arrange the details the way I want.
Therefore, yes. IF Christ's life had been planned as married and with children, then He could have been just as consecrated.
"I will leave for the moment how being filled with Grace from the moment of her conception does or does not differ from the Catholic idea of the Immaculate Conception. For the now can we agree that Mary was indeed, unlike the rest of us, conceived filled with Grace?"
My understanding of the consensus patrum is that God's grace, His uncreated energies fall equally on all of us, good and evil just like the sun shines on the blind and the sighted equally. This would seem to militate against the idea that Panagia was any more filled with grace at her conception than the rest of us, would it not?
It sure can be hard for the major families of Christianity to dance together to different time signatures. Protestants waltz along in 3/4 time praying to the Father in the Name of Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, our dear Catholic friends have an additional partner in their dance, and try to convince us that the true waltz is done in 4/4 time! God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and goddess the Mother all want to dance with you!
LOL! Mary is not a goddess! She was created, therefore, not eternal.
"Meanwhile, our dear Catholic friends have an additional partner in their dance, and try to convince us that the true waltz is done in 4/4 time! God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and goddess the Mother all want to dance with you!"
There is a certain amount of fairness in what you say as a practical matter. But that isn't at all what the Latin Church actually teaches. Unfortunately, like with the filioque, trying to address one problem which arose out of a mistaken speculation raised to the level of, if not specifically, dogma, here that the Theotokos of necessity as a daughter of Eve was conceived with a "macula" or stain of sin, Original Sin, on her soul and in such a state could not possibly have been fit to carry God, a formulation had to be developed which solved the problem. Hence, unlike all the rest of mankind, all the other children of Eve, the Theotokos was preserved through a special grace not otherwise available to the rest of us, from the stain and was thus worthy to carry God. The problem lies not with the ever sinless state of the Theotokos, but with the claim that she was specially preserved...but preserved from something which the Eastern Church has never agreed even existed. And the result of that otherwise logical solution to a perceived, if unreal, problem, at a minimum among the vast run of Roman Catholics is the notion that the Theotokos was ontologically different from the rest of us. Its not much of a leap from that to notions that she is in some manner a "goddess", though that term isn't used, or its near cognate "Co-Redemptrix" which can be explained in a perfectly patristic manner, and sometimes is, but which almost never is understood in anything approaching a non-heretical way because the usual mistaken understanding is a denial of the Trinity.
At base, if one were to do away with the +Augustinian notion of Original Sin, the reason for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception would evaporate and misconceptions about the meaning of that unfortunate term "Co-Redemptrix" would likewise disappear...and for Latin and Orthodox Christians, the Theotokos would remain just as ever sinless as she is perceived through the lens of the Immaculate Conception dogma.
"Other" children? No doubt you have Scriptural proof that they were Mary's children, right? And please don't bring up Jesus' "brothers" and "sisters" – we have been through that already on this thread several times.
As to being a loving wife, Consider what St. Gregory Palamas says:
If God were physicially present in your home, would you tend to other interests? Would you put God on a "backburner?" Would you, in His presence, find other things more interesting? (please say "No!")
We have been through it, and the evidence seems to be on the Protestant side.
Even Jerome says that "cousin" CAN BE a translation of adelphoi.
If the general sense makes good sense then it's common sense.
"And of course the definition of the dogma states clearly that Mary shares our nature. Regarding "Original Sin," you might reflect on the fact that or Calvinis brethren do, or used to put much more stress on the doctrine that we do."
I know what the dogma says. The problem is that no matter what it says, it means that Panagia was ontologically different than the rest of us. I can say that the moon is made of green cheese. That doesn't make it so, especially if in the same breath I say that its made of rock. I sincerely believe that catholics can be excused if they conclude that the Theotokos was a of different order of humanity from the rest of us and proceed to improperly use terms like Co-Redemptrix.
As for the Calvinists and their interpretation of +Augustine's notions of Original Sin, well, you're absolutely right. They have raised it to a level far beyond anything that Rome has ever taught, though I'm not sure that their reading of +Augustine isn't a thoroughly fair one.
By the way, Robby, absent Rome's understanding of Original Sin, do you think the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is necessary? If so, why?
"We have been through it, and the evidence seems to be on the Protestant side."
It would be a whole lot more convincing, Padre, if any of you came from a Greek speaking culture...but you don't.
Including Jerome? :>)
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