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

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | 12/4/2006 | John-Henry Westen

[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/

[Quix]

i THINK

just think

that the article was asserting that the only conclusion reached so far from the experiment was that light is always both particle and wave.

But the related particulars I don’t recall at all, if there were any.

I recall thinking at the time, that it was another one of God’s little fun tweaks with us . . .

another one of his BOTH/ANDs.

[kosta50]

Thanks, Q. Much obliged.

[Quix]

Sure.

Sorry I couldn’t do better.

[Alamo-Girl]

betty boop: But we do not have completedness in creation before the final Judgment, which is where the perfection of God's creation is achieved -- not before.

Quix: I can't think of a single Scripture which would 100% fool proof indicate anything of the kind. I actually can't think of a single Scriptural phrase which would infallibly 100% reliably prove, indicate that CREATION will ever be "completed" in our notions of the construct.

The Great White Throne Judgment is in Revelation 20.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. - Rev 20:11-15

And from Revelation 21 (emphasis mine):

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God [is] with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, [and be] their God.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. - Rev 21:1-6

[Quix]

Blessed Scriptures.

I may be missing the nose on my face . . . but I still fail to see ANY

even remotely clear, even ambiguous statement that such signals the END of CREATION and the END OF CREATING.

Those Scriptures, to me, merely signal the end of history as we have known it; known of it.

There are probably a near infinite number of options for God from that point forward . . . with some connection to this time/space . . . experience . . . and some relatively only very faintly connected to this time/space experience.

What am I missing?

[hosepipe]

[.. It is even more sad to me when a Christian insists that God must be understandable to him. A Christian should know better than to think God could fit in a tidy little box (to use Quix's term.) ..]

I prefer to think of GOD(father, son, holy spirit) as my friend..
Separating GOD into the immutable is beyond my abilites..
As a child(a human child) God as a personality must be accessible to me..
Must be accessible for me to dare to access him as beneficial..
A child need not totally understand an adult.. to sit in his lap with no fear..

There is no possible way my grand children can understand me or what I am about..
They need only know me personally for I reduce myself TO THEM.. in the moment..

In that way I relate to God, my God.. For my god told me, I think, that he would be as real to me, as I am with him.. There is something extremely logical in that.. that trumps fully understanding everything about him..

My tidy box is as large as I am.. So also to every christian (and Jew too) I think.. is true.. One reason there are many denominations.. probably.. Some of my grand children want to be very close to me, others are happy with a more distant relationship in degrees..

My grand kids have taught me a lot.. about this subject..

[Quix]

Extremely well put, imho.

Thanks much.

[Alamo-Girl]

Well, with God anything is possible, including that the universe was created as is. God doesn't need space/time to create. Besides, a periodic (oscilating) universe would keep re-creacting itself in a perpetuum mobile fashion without any need of God. Each repetition would be the 'beginning.'

Again, I must strongly disagree. The cyclic models, hesitating, ekpyrotic, brane collision, multi-verse, multi-world, imaginary time --- all of them --- require space/time for physical causation because in the absence of time, events cannot occur and in the absence of space, things cannot exist.

Truly the scientists burn the midnight oil looking for any way they can to obviate God.

The only cosmology which could say God was unnecessary was the "steady state" model which so many clung to with all their might until those pesky CMB measurements in the 60's blew it right out of the water.

[Quix]

Resonates with my mind and spirit.

Thanks.

[Alamo-Girl]

What am I missing?

Omega, perhaps?

Revelation 21 tells us what we need to know about the new heaven and earth. It is done, it is God's will, it is His kingdom come. I see nothing in Revelation 21 to say it would not be lively and bright.

[Alamo-Girl]

What a beautiful, insightful testimony, dear hosepipe! Thank you!

[Quix]

But there’s nothing I can see, discern in said Scriptures to indicate that Omega means the total final end of all CreatING for all eternity future.

. . . merely the end of this . . . book, as it were.

or even perhaps this . . . series of books . . .

or even perhaps this . . . book store/library shelf of books . . .

or even perhaps this . . . class of bookishnesses . . .

or . . . ???

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed, Revelation 21 doesn't address creativity. We'll see.

I'm too sleepy to go on, dear brother in Christ! See you tomorrow.

[Quix]

Getting to that state myself. Thanks much.

Blessed sleep to you.

[Forest Keeper]

FK: "we have an honest disagreement. Even in the English, as Quix has said, the Gospel message is clear"

Obviously, not clear enough for us not have disagreements. :) The examples are too numerous to list, but consider only representative few. Such as the Roman Catholic (and very few Orthodox) reading of Peter's commission with the keys. ...

First, it depends on what one considers "the Gospel". I was thinking more along the lines of those parts of it upon which we DO agree. There obviously must be enough there for both of us to consider each other Christians. Second, I was only speaking of scripture alone. When we get scripture alone versus scripture plus Tradition, there will be major differences.

FK: "However, what would you say the source of discernment is?"

Kosta: "God of course! But our discernment is clouded by the human fall."

FK: "Is it the free will brains that God gave us and then respected so much not to tamper with? Or, does God grace us with discernment, on a continual basis?"

Kosta: "Catholics and Orthodox will answer: both!. He gave us reason so that we may discern, and freedom so that we may choose, which He respects by His own decision, out of love."

I don't see how it can be both. Is the reconciliation of both of your statements that God does NOT, in fact, grace us with discernment, but rather that He gives us the TOOLS for discernment, and then we do the actual discerning ourselves? If true, then this would mirror our disagreements over salvation/theosis itself, i.e., whether Christ actually does the saving.

FK: "IF God is truly in control, then there will be no false impressions about the Gospel for those God intends to receive it, in any language and at any time. Eyes to see and ears to hear."

But that presupposes that there are actually people who discern God's Word perfectly. We (and I think I can speak on behalf of our Catholic brothers as well) do not believe that any man is capable of perfectly understanding God's Word, ...

Nobody claims that any one person discerns God's word perfectly. All we know is that what God sends IS perfect, and from these we suppose that our individual rates of discernment vary from person to person according to the will of the Spirit. That only makes sense. There are plenty of truths I think I have now that I was in no way ready to handle before. Discernment builds upon itself one step at a time. It is a lifelong process, and no one gets it all in this lifetime. For example:

Phil 1:9-11 : 9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of God.

Love, knowledge, depth of insight, and discernment are all things that grow.

Show me one of the Seven Ecumenical Councils to be in error. What we Orthodox consider infallible are the Scriptures, the Divine Liturgy (which pronounces the Scriptures), and the Ecumenical Councils, which are based on Scriptures.

We believe that the scriptures pronounce the scriptures, so it comes down to interpretation and the authority of the interpreter. I was unable to find a readable synopsis of the holdings of the seven councils, but if you know of one, I would be happy to read it.

[Forest Keeper]

However, the problem is what is "core truth". Some will say that all who consider Jesus their Savior believe in "core truth" and therefore represent the Church. Such all-inclusive generalizations certainly do not define the Church because "Christ" in many of these assemblies is not the same, although they may refer to the Biblical Jesus.

That's a perfectly valid point. Perhaps, with certain exceptions, we could consider it "those truths required for true faith in the true Christ". At service yesterday, our pastor spoke of true faith being "total submission to Christ". Of course, it must be the correct Christ, as you say. However, even with all of our disagreements, I think we actually do agree fully on the identity of Christ. That lets us call each other Christians.

From those proclamations (of the ecumenical Councils) we believe that (1) He is the Hypo-stasis (lit. sub-stance) of the Holy Trinity, one in nature (essence), that is — divine, with the Father and the Spirit; (2) that all Three Hypostases differ in the Divine Economy but are fully equal and indistinguishable in their divinity, one God, indivisible, simple, not compound.

To the extent I understand this, and assuming there are no unobvious entailments, I don't see any problem with this.

Furthermore we also define that Jesus is the eternal Word of God, Who took on flesh and Human nature and was born of a Virgin; that He is fully God and fully Man; two natures, and two wills, unconfused, in one Person.

We're on a roll. :)

These nuances are not obvious from just reading the Bible. Closer scrutiny tells us that the devil is in the details, no pun intended, as some truly satanic cults have arisen from those who call on Jesus as their "savior".

I would agree that not every nuance in the Bible is obvious. But, I would say that they all are discernible from ONLY the Bible by the leading of the Spirit. In addition, from all of those you have listed here, I would say that many ARE fairly obvious from a simple reading.

FK: "But what is your conclusion about "subtle nuances"? Are understanding of these required to be Christian?"

Yes, most definitely.

But if you really believe that, then in your mind only the Orthodox can be Christian. I know you don't believe that. How else would you describe your differences with your closest cousins, whom you obviously consider Christian, but over subtle nuances?

[.30Carbine]

I have not followed anywhere near this whole discussion, but kosta50, your post falls so finely in line with a devotional reading of mine this morning that I just had to post it. I include your ping list in my return; hopefully others will be blessed by these words, too, from Mighty Is Your Hand: A 40-Day Journey in the Company of Andrew Murray, Devotional Readings Arranged and Paraphrased by David Hazard (we are part of a great cloud of witnesses!) -

Rise and Walk

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:31

When Jesus saw [the invalid] lying there,
and knew that he already had been in that condition
[for thirty-eight years], he said to him,
"Do you want to be made well?"...
[Then] Jesus said to him, "Rise...and walk."
John 5:6,8

There are many marks of spiritual health, and the apostle John points out to us one of them - walking. Jesus said to the sick man, "Rise and walk," and the man was restored to full health and vigor, able to take part in all the work of life.

This is a wonderful picture, suggesting the kind of spiritual health that God wants to restore to us....It is the Risen One who says to us, "Rise and walk." He gives us the power of resurrected life.

Our new life is a walk in Christ: "As ye have...received Christ Jesus...so walk ye in him" (Colossians 2:6 KJV).

Our new life is a walk like Christ: "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did" (1 John 2:6)....

It is a walk "in the light, as he is in the light" (1 John 1:7). It is a walk of faith - with all its power coming from God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, flowing to the soul that is learning how to turn away from the world and to stop drawing our strength from the power offered by the world....

How wonderful we would find our daily lives to be if we discovered how this spiritual walk is possible - if we actively believed that God sent His Almighty Son and the Holy Spirit to call us and prepare us for an earthly life with heavenly power beyond anything man could dare to imagine or hope for!

....

Christ's condition for spiritual health and powerful success is to bring us into such dependence upon Him that we shall not be able, for one single moment, to live without Him.

If we want to live in this world, having a life of true spiritual power, we must learn that Christ himself is our life in a sense that so many cannot begin to conceive. The prevailing feeble and sickly Christian life is due entirely to the fact that we do not lay hold of a divine truth:

As long as we continue to expect Christ to do something for us from heaven, in single acts of grace from time to time - and each time, trusting Him only to give us the earthly answer, which lasts only for a little while - then we will never be restored to perfect spiritual health. But if we see, just once, that there is to be nothing of our own for a single moment, if we learn to accept it from Him and trust Him for it, then the life of Christ becomes the health of our soul.

Health is nothing but life in its normal, undisturbed activity. Christ gives us health by giving us himself as our life - and so He becomes our strength for our walk in the spirit.

~Excerpted from The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer

Amen.

[.30Carbine]

I think Scripture indicates He delights in creating and hiding things for us to discover.

Hooray! Yes He does!

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing:
but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
~Proverbs 25:2

[fortheDeclaration]

Jerome had a personal opinion about these books, that was not normative for the Church; the books in question were canonized at Hippo and Carthage and were a part of every bible ever since, excepting Protestant falsifications of the scripture. They were also translated by Jerome despite his misgivings, and included in his Vulgate.

The councils of Hippo and Carthage were local councils and had no right to declare anything for every RCC church.

Moreover, many RCC theologians after Jerome followed Jeromes own view through the Middle Ages, and did not regard those Apocrypha books equal with the Canon.

Thus, the RCC Canon was not decided until Trent.

As for including the books, Jerome did so relunticantly and made sure from comments in the Vulgate, that they were to be regarded as 'secondary' works.

[fortheDeclaration]

Then there are cases where I would argue that not only does our view accord with the scripture, but that yours does not. For example, I do not see how the Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide is scriptural — it is after all flatly denied by the scripture.

Sola Fide, is totally scripural and is based on normal, clear reading of scripture.

Scripture must be harmonized with scripture, not twisted to fit into a pre-conceived theological system, as you do, ignoring the clear readings in Romans and Eph. regarding salvation by faith without works.

The chapter in James 2 is not speaking of eternal salvation at all as the context makes very clear.

As for 'private interpretion', the word 'private' in that passage is defined as 'separate' unconnnected'.

Thus, Peter is not talking about individual opinions, he is talking about no doctrine being formed by a single scripture, all true doctrines are formed by comparing scripture with scripture.

Finally, when Christ is asked what works must be done to do the works of God, He replies,

This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent (Jn.6:29)