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/
"what will your response be if your Patriarch or Pope steps up and says follow this person? Since the Apostate church will exist; what keeps you from following a counciliar recommendation to follow a great peace-maker who claims to be aligned with Christianity?"
Sadly, Orthodoxy has a long history of heresiarchs, but happily, we've always been able to get rid of them. What keeps us from following them, or following them for long, is our innate and God given sense of what is Orthodox and Catholic and what is not...and its almost always the laity which discovers these defaults and acts on it. Maybe God has prepared us for the coming of the Anti-Christ and the "Apostate Church".
Um, actually Kolokotronis, we don't know for sure when Mark was written or which of the gospels was written when and what was first, etc., Some argue for an early date and some for a late one.
Per the Catholic Encyclopedia: "The date of the Gospel is uncertain. The external evidence is not decisive, and the internal does not assist very much. St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Tertullian, and St. Jerome signify that it was written before St. Peter's death. The subscription of many of the later unical and cursive manuscripts states that it was written in the tenth or twelfth year after the Ascension (A.D. 38-40). The "Paschal Chronicle" assigns it to A.D. 40, and the "Chronicle" of Eusebius to the third year of Claudius (A.D. 43). Possibly these early dates may be only a deduction from the tradition that Peter came to Rome in the second year of Claudius, A.D. 42 (cf. Euseb., "Hist. Eccl.", II, xiv; Jer., "De Vir. Ill.", i). St. Irenæus, on the other hand, seems to place the composition of the Gospel after the death of Peter and Paul (meta de ten touton exodon--"Adv. Hær.", III, i). Papias, too, asserting that Mark wrote according to his recollection of Peter's discourses, has been taken to imply that Peter was dead."
I personally believe it was an early gospel and was wround long before Paul died. I believe the apostles and early followers of Paul and Peter wrote things down pretty quickly after Jesus died around age 40.
"Alas, the church is full of sinners."
The Church is a hospital for sick souls. One would expect to find sinners there! Its where we belong. :)
"Which is why Paul was pleased with the Bereans for checking out what he said by comparing it with Scripture."
You don't think the Bereans were reading +Mark do you?
They could have been. Nothing says that they weren't. If Mark was written in the 40s, they well may have been. They were reading whatever they had. Their Scripture was no more inspired than ours. The principle applies.
"They were reading whatever they had."
They were Jews in the Synagogue at Berea, Blogger. They were reading the Septuagint (not your later, different version of the OT).
I've got to bake the Vasilopita now. Have a Happy New Year!
Matthew wrote his gospel to the Jews. It is conceivable that they had such writing to compare with. Regardless, they read what they had. They compared Paul's words with Scripture and were commended for it. We have more books. We compare what is said with Scripture. Man's words mean nothing unless they are in alignment with Scripture.
It is unique and in fact contrived when translated as such in Luke 1:28. "Full of grace" is translated only once in the scripture and that applied to Jesus in John 1:14, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." The Greek is pleres charis.
I plan to tune in and see what Benny Hinn says to do.
FK: "How do you describe what happened when Jesus prayed? Was He talking to Himself?"
No. He was praying to God the Father, to the First Person of the Holy Trinity, not to divine nature, just as He was calling on the Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, and not on divine nature.
How do we DISTINGUISH the three persons from the one divine nature? I ask because I have some experience in this area and the results were most unfortunate for me! LOL!
Under what you say above, would it be equally proper for the Father to pray to the Spirit, or for the Spirit to pray to the Father, or for either to pray to Christ? Is first, second, third "person" an order of importance?
I wanted to keep my word, so I just finished reading the entire link to +Anthanasius you gave me earlier. For whatever it's worth, here are my comments: :)
Even from C.S. Lewis' introduction I felt challenged. While he in no way dismissed new works (including his own :), his message was to always look back to the original older works for real authority. Instinctively, that sounded reasonable to me, but only on a guidance level, as opposed to authority. It is good to look at the early works. I agree with many of the holdings of the early works. Problematic was that it seemed clear to me that he believed that the way to understand scripture was through man, exclusively. That is, from this introduction. This passage leaped off the page at me:
Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.
He appears to be equating that which I never could. In addition, he appears to be saying "'Old' absolutely means correct". Plenty of false faiths are older than Christianity.
A big HOWEVER is found here:
People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.
Admittedly, this leaves me genuinely confused as to what his ultimate view was on the Magisterium (including papal infallibility?) or the Consensus Patrum. BTW, to both of you, as the two terms have been used on these many threads, what is the distinction between "a decree by the Magisterium" and "a decree by the Consensus Patrum"? (If "decree" isn't the right word, then fill in whatever is right for what you know I mean. :) My instinct would be to say that if the laity rejected the latter it would fall, but not with the former.
Finally, I was moved by this comment by Lewis:
We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity.
A beautiful and true sentiment. Many of our divisions are important and most worthy of discussion in places like FR, even with passion, but it comforts me to know that in the end we are all still good Christian brothers and sisters in Christ.
Well, since I've spent this much time on the introduction, I think I'll start a new post for the body of the work we are actually talking about! LOL! I promise I will cut it WAY WAY down. :)
"How do we DISTINGUISH the three persons from the one divine nature? I ask because I have some experience in this area and the results were most unfortunate for me! LOL!"
Continuing Orthodox Education!
"God is known and understood in everything in three hypostases. He holds all things and provides for all things through His Son in the Holy Spirit; and no one of Them, wherever He is invoked, is named or thought of as existing apart or separately from the two others." +Gregory of Sinai
And
"Trinity is simple unity; it is not merged together - it is three in one. The One three-hypostatical God has the three hypostases perfectly distinct in Himself." +Gregory of Sinai
And
"God is the only Being that truly is - the only eternal and immutable Being - who neither receives being from non-being nor returns to non-being; who is Tri-hypostatic and Almighty" +Gregory Palamas
And
"The transcendently and absolutely perfect Goodness is Intellect; thus what else could the which proceeds from It as from a source be except Intelligence-content or Logos? But the divine Logos is not to be understood in the same way as the human thought-form that we express orally, for that proceeds not from the intellect but from a body activated by the intellect...Thus the supreme Logos is the Son, and is so described by us, in order that we may recognize Him to be perfect in a perfect and individual hypostasis, since He comes from the Father and is in no way inferior to the Father's essence, but is indistinguishably identical with Him, although not according to hypostasis; for His distinction as hypostasis is manifest in the fact that the Logos is begotten in a divinely fitting manner from the Father." +Gregory Palamas
Happy New Year, FK!
You know, when I gave you that link I wasn't even thinking of Lewis' introduction. Interesting that you focused on it. Remember that Lewis was an Anglican, not a Latin or Orthodox so his pov will be somewhat different from ours.
"BTW, to both of you, as the two terms have been used on these many threads, what is the distinction between "a decree by the Magisterium" and "a decree by the Consensus Patrum"? (If "decree" isn't the right word, then fill in whatever is right for what you know I mean. :) My instinct would be to say that if the laity rejected the latter it would fall, but not with the former."
The Magisterium is a Latin Church term which describes the teaching authority of the Latin Church. Orthodoxy doesn't use the term. But to the extent that a hierarch or the hierarchy began teaching something which we as the laity recognize as not Orthodox, we have rejected, can reject and will reject it...and that's the end of it. The consensus patrum is just what it says it is, the consensus of The Fathers on given points of theology. Its not something which implicates the obligation of the People of God to reject a non-Orthodox teaching. So far as I know, there is no instance of Orthodoxy rejecting any point within the consensus patrum, but the Latin Church, which uses the consensus rather differently, or so it appears to me, would disagree. The consensus patrum per se doesn't "issue" any "decrees", though it is very, very often part of the basis for a dogmatic decree of a council.
There does seem to be an order of the person's of the trinity. The Son does as the Father wishes, the Spirit testifies not of Himself but of the Son. Yet, the three are One God. Certainly more than my little mind can comprehend!
Benny believes that the Lord CAN'T come back until Christians have cleaned up the World and all the sick Christians in hospital beds are healed. Yet, such a belief doesn't keep him from prophesying that the Lord will appear physically at His (Benny's) crusades.
It does make one wonder though, given Benny's penchant for extra-biblical revelation, what would happen if the AC were on the scene.
Here we go again. I hate to break it to you, but that is Arianism. There is no Hypostatic subordination in Godhead.
You keep thinking of Jesus Who, in His human nature, submits to Father's wishes. But since your concept of Jesus is different from what the Church preached, always and everywhere, your conclusions follow Arian thinking of a lesser God.
The monarchy of the Father is that He is the source of everything and all, including the divinity. The Son (Logos) is distinguished from the Father not for being different or subordinate to Him, but for being begotten of Him. The Spirit differs from the Son not in being lesser to Him or to the Father, but – as regards His existence – in proceeding from the Father.
Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed to the Father in strict obedience to Him in His human nature.
When it comes to Christ, it is absolutely essential to distinguish everything He says in terms of His two natures. Otherwise you will be asking such things as "To whom did Jesus pray..." and implying that Logos is somehow inferior to the father.
You don't. The only Hypostasis (Person) that is distinguished for being human and divine is the Son in that within Him subsist two distinguished natures, one corporeal and human and the other one incorporeal and divine.
The distinction of the Hypostases is revealed in the so-called Divine Economy of our Salvation, as God reveals Himself as Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all three co-substantial (co-essential), sharing the same divinity (divine nature), all three being equally God, equally divine.
In the process of our salvation, God sends His Son to atone for us, and the Son sends the Spirit once this has been accomplished, so that the Spirit may guide us until the Son returns. But God never leaves us! It is only that Hypostatically God accomplishes different tasks that matter to our salvation.
There can never be a greater sin than to blaspheme against the Spirit (the only transgression that cannot be redeemed), yet the Spirit is often trated as the "third" in line in the West, concentrating mroe on the unified "God," and mentioning the Son more in His human nature.
I believe Kolokotronis, and others (myself included) have, in the past, given you plenty of patristic literature to ponder and easily answer your inquiries, as the Church understood them all along.
One such link is to St. John of Damascus, the last of the so-called "Desert Fathers" whose clarity, in my opinion, supercedes that of the 13th century St. Gregory Palamas.
This is what St. John Damascene says concerning the Word and the Son of God:
For where could it be, if it were to go outside Him? For inasmuch as our nature is perishable and easily dissolved, our word is also without subsistence. But since God is everlasting and perfect, He will have His Word subsistent in Him, and everlasting trod living, and possessed of all the attributes of the Begetter.
For just as our word, proceeding as it floes out of the mind, is neither wholly identical with the mind nor utterly diverse from it (for so far as it proceeds out of the mind it is different from it, while so far as it reveals the mind, it is no longer absolutely diverse from the mind, but being one in nature with the mind, it is yet to the subject diverse from it), so in the same manner also the Word of Gods in its independent subsistence is differentiated froth Him from Whom it derives its subsistence: but inasmuch as it displays in itself the same attributes as are seen in God, it is of the same nature as God.
For just as absolute perfection is contemplated in the Father, so also is it contemplated in the Word that is begotten of Him." [Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chapter VI]
Notice his first sentence: so this then one and only God is not Wordless. The creative Intellect (the Wisdom, sofia) of the Father is not without a creative Word or the Creative Spirit (something that we, made in the image and likeness of God, even if severely tarnished, understand intrinsically, since our own intellect cannot be wordless either!) in order to be expressed.
Oh Gee, Kosta. Since you have so happily pointed out to myself that I am an Arian (in spite of my frequent and explicit statements that Jesus is God and eternally preexistent), I guess I'll just leave my own church and go join the Jehovah's Witnesses!
Give be a break! You're just itching to tag me with some ancient heresy! You will not find it.
Now, lets' take this slowly. Did I say subordination? No. I said order. The members of the trinity are equal, yet there is an order to how they operate as is spelled out in Scripture (particularly in regard to Jesus' humanity, but also in operation as deity [since the Holy Spirit has His job of testifying of Jesus, and Jesus awaits the Father's command to get His bride]). Get your head out of your patriarch's face and read the Bible for yourself and you wouldn't make such accusations!
John 14
10Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
31But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.
John 15
10If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
26But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
John 8:29 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
29And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
John 10:18
18No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
Mark 14:36 "Father," he prayed, "my Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet not as I want, but what you want."
John 12:49
49For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
John 5:19
So Jesus answered them, "I tell you the truth; the Son can do nothing on his own; he does only what he sees his Father doing. What the Father does, the Son also does.
This is not saying that Jesus is in any way inferior to the Father or that the Spirit is inferior to Jesus; but there is an ORDER to the operation of the Trinity that also represents its harmony. Or would you prefer that the Trinity be disorderly?
Since you will recognize Creedalism, Here is Athanasius puts it:
# Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;
# Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood.
# Who although he be [is] God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;
# One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking assumption of the Manhood into God;
# One altogether, not by confusion of Substance [Essence], but by unity of Person.
# For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ;
# Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell [Hades, spirit-world], rose again the third day from the dead.
# He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God [God the Father] Almighty,
Phil. 2:6-11: who, though he was in the form of God, did
not count equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but emptied himself, taking the
form of a servant, being born in the like-
ness of men. And being found in human form
he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even death on a cross. Therefore God
has highly exalted him and bestowed on him
the name which is above every name, that at
the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in
heaven and on earth and under the earth, and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Silly insults aside, you did not leave just the organization. You left the theology, the Eucharist and the apostoplic succession, all given us by Christ. The schism with the Orthodox, now rapidly healing, might be roughly described as leaving the organization. Your collective heresy simply cannot be compared to the honest disagreements we have with the Orthodox over the deposit of faith given the Church of the Seven councils.
Individual Protestants that seek the mercy of Christ will be in heaven despite, not because of the heresy of their leaders.
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