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/
Well said. I recall from my medieval studies that the Roman Catholic institution frowned upon Sexual relationship even WITHIN marriage except for the purpose of procreation.
It is one reason why Pope Benedict VIII in 1018 forbade priestly marriages.
The apostle Paul discouraged people from marrying in the present persecution, but specifically said that if they did they had not sinned. He also okayed abstinence within a marriage, but only for a time for specific religious devotion and then they should go back to normal marital relations.
In demanding that Mary be accepted as a perpetual virgin, they are indeed saying that sex within marriage is sinful. To that, I say
Marriage honourable in all, and the bed undefiled.
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband." -- Ephesians 5:28-33 "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
"Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about.
Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart." -- Psalm 32:9-11
"From what I can tell after reading it all, clearly the money chapter for this conversation is chapter 3. [There are others on point such as chap. 7, (48-49)]."
For this discussion, yes, I suppose they are, but for the entire piece, really for our salvation, its this at Chap. 8, 54:
"As, then, he who desires to see God Who by nature is invisible and not to be beheld, may yet perceive and know Him through His works, so too let him who does not see Christ with his understanding at least consider Him in His bodily works and test whether they be of man or God. If they be of man, then let him scoff; but if they be of God, let him not mock at things which are no fit subject for scorn, but rather let him recognize the fact and marvel that things divine have been revealed to us by such humble means, that through death deathlessness has been made known to us, and through the Incarnation of the Word the Mind whence all things proceed has been declared, and its Agent and Ordainer, the Word of God Himself. He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God. He manifested Himself by means of a body in order that we might perceive the Mind of the unseen Father. He endured shame from men that we might inherit immortality. He Himself was unhurt by this, for He is impassable and incorruptible; but by His own impassability He kept and healed the suffering men on whose account He thus endured."
When the father determines the time is right, the groom then returns for His bride
Interesting, considering that the Church is also the Bride of Christ. Judaic roots in this as well. Thank you for pointing this out.
"While there appears to be some order, no one voted for leadership."
I think you'll find that some bishop always presided at these early synods and its likely they were elected. Eventually, the bishops of the major cities came to regularly preside at local or provincial synods and later the Patriarchs of the major Sees of the Empire. But, at least from an Orthodox point of view, this primacy, while invested with such authority as necessary to make the primacy real and effective, was still a primacy among equals. We still operate this way.
Yikes! Your highlighted portion is certainly loaded (and heretical).
"Yikes! Your highlighted portion is certainly loaded (and heretical)."
Really? You know, Blogger, that's the usual protestant response so you're not alone! It is indeed loaded, which is why I highlighted it and likely why +Athanasius wrote it (he was a provocative sort of bishop). Why do you think that its heresy? :)
Ah So, you're picking a fight! Bad boy!
Why? Because he is saying that we become God. If he had said we become like Christ, then it wouldn't be so much of an issue. Becoming God has a different connotation to it (particularly in this New Agey 'I am god' world).
Language means something - especially surface terminology. If it takes writing a theological treatise to explain what you mean by the use of a particular phrase, it might be wise to consider whether the phrase should have been used at all.
"Ah So, you're picking a fight! Bad boy!"
Nah. I just can't resist this line on occassion because it always gets a rise out of you guys! :)
"Becoming God has a different connotation to it (particularly in this New Agey 'I am god' world)."
Well, of course +Athanasius wasn't writing in this "New Age", but I suspect that the comment caused quite a stir when it was written nearly 1700 years ago and I'll bet +Athanasius meant to stir things up.
"If it takes writing a theological treatise to explain what you mean by the use of a particular phrase, it might be wise to consider whether the phrase should have been used at all."
See, that's the problem with proof texting! :) This line, however, is found 54 pages into just such a treatise. Read the whole thing, twice even as FK has and then we'll talk about this line and whatever else you guys want to talk about from the piece. As a suggestion, pay special attention to what +Athanasius says about our creation and what happened to us and remember that this was written 36 years before +Augustine was born.
Had a long day so its off to bed for me.
No, I do not think that all righteous men have never sinned. this is not the point. Yes, we sin, as John says in John 1. The point is that men who sin DO turn back to God. Wicked people do not.
Thus, ALL (meaning ALL) have sinned. That fits perfectly with Paul's message.
Yes, we have all sinned. But the Scripture talks about righteous people, nonetheless. Apparently, we don't have to be absolutley perfect to be righteous.
I don't see how any non-Christian could come away from the Bible with the idea that all men who are called righteous were sinless from birth.
Who says that all righteous men are sinless? David was called righteous. Does this mean he was sinless?
My point is that his statement would have been utterly pointless if all he meant was that wicked men sin. Therefore, since all Jews knew that some were righteous, some must have thought that some wicked Jews were sinless. Paul was there to teach them that "no", in fact, only the wicked Jews sinned. This makes no sense as a teaching to me. Why would you think that wicked men were sinless? I am not sure not how you get this concept?. The point is not about whether righteous sin or not, the point is that the wicked who sinned didn't care nor did they ask for repentance. Thus, the Jews pursued David were wicked, as were the Jews who were opposed to Paul, according to him. Being a Jew by birth wasn't enough to inherit salvation.
I'm saying that Paul's statement has profound meaning if he was saying that since ALL have sinned, it is a waste of time to attempt to enter Heaven by doing one's best to follow the Law. Many Jews certainly did believe that, as you pointed out
I do not believe that the Jews thought that one had to be absolutely perfect and sinless to enter heaven.
Regards
I suppose people relate more readily to a visible person more than to an invisible person, the Holy Spirit. I am vacationing in Mexico as I write this and the Virgin Mary is so much more a part of the culture. I do not have all the answers, but I believe that Mary is an actual creation of God and was one of us that helps to explain our devotion to her. Not to say we do not have any feelings towards the Spirit; However, the Virgin was a human being who said "yes". People have an affinity with Mary because she was a real human being. At any rate, the important thing to remember is that Mary is nothing without God. Thus, it is pointless to compare Mary with the Holy Spirit.
Regards
I'm sure Benny Hinn considers himself a sola scriptura guy also.
Benny is a loon and a charlatan.
There is no verse that says Mary bore additional children, no matter which version of the Bible you are using.
True. But Jesus did have brothers and sisters and the Bible says that Joseph knew her not UNTIL Jesus was born and that she was found with child BEFORE THEY CAME TOGETHER. The context indicates that Mary and Joseph had a normal relationship.
But this has been rehashed, Blogger, on this thread and many others. There is more than one meaning to the Greek word to "know" her. There is more than one way of interpreting "until."
As for "before they came together" that's not what the Greek text says; it says that +Jospeh "took" a wife.
My point was Dr. E's non-biblical conclusion presented as "factual" statement that Mary "bore" more children. We don't know that this is true. Certainly the earliest Church never taught that
What about Jack Van-Impe?
"I recall from my medieval studies that the Roman catholic insitution frowned upon Sexual (sic) relationship even WITHIN marriage except for the purpose of procreation".
Well, that "medieval studies" program was---medieval, all right.
The Church (which is not an "institution") has not taught that. There is a lot that can be said about that, but it is late and I need my sleep as I am ROE.
At any rate, your medieval professor could have been challenged on that premise.
You would be incorrect on that one. My professor had us read an entire book on the subject.
Here are some thoughts on the matter from Augustine, Aquinas, and Patriarchs
BOOK I, CHAP. 5 --THE NATURAL GOOD OF MARRIAGE. ALL SOCIETY NATURALLY REPUDIATES A FRAUDULENT COMPANION. WHAT IS TRUE CONJUGAL PURITY? NO TRUE VIRGINITY AND CHASTITY EXCEPT IN DEVOTION TO TRUE FAITH.
The union, then, of male and female for the purpose of procreation is the natural good of marriage. But he makes a bad use of this good who uses it bestially, so that his intention is on the gratification of lust, intend of the desire of offspring. Nevertheless, in sundry animals unendowed with reason, as, for instance, in most birds, there is both preserved a certain kind of confederation of pairs, and a social combination of skill in nest-building; and their mutual division of the periods for cherishing their eggs and their alternation in the labor of feeding their young, give them the appearance of so acting, when they mate, as to be intent rather on securing the continuance of their kind than on gratifying lust. Of these two, the one is the likeness of man in a brute; the other, the likeness of the brute in man. With respect, however, to what I ascribed to the nature of marriage, that the male and the female are united together as associates for procreation, and consequently do not defraud each other (forasmuch as every associated state has a natural abhorrence of a fraudulent companion), although even men without faith possess this palpable blessing of nature, yet, since they use it not in faith, they only turn it to evil and sin. In like manner, therefore, the marriage of believers converts to the use of righteousness that carnal concupiscence by which "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit." For they entertain the firm purpose of generating offspring to be regenerated--that the children who are born of them as "children of the world" may be born again and become "sons of God." Wherefore all parents who do not beget children with this intention, this will this purpose, of transferring them from bring members of the first man into being members of Christ, but boast as unbelieving parents over unbelieving children, - however circumspect they be in their cohabitation, studiously limiting it to the begetting of children, - really have no conjugal chastity in themselves. For inasmuch as chastity is a virtue, hating unchastity as its contrary vice, and as all the virtues (even those whose operation is by means of the body) have their seat in the soul, how can the body be in any true sense said to be chaste, when the soul itself is committing fornication against the true God? Now such fornication the holy psalmist censures when he says: "For, lo, they that are far from Thee shall perish: Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from Thee." There is, then, no true chastity, whether conjugal, or vidual, or virginal, except that which devotes itself to true faith. For though consecrated virginity is rightly preferred to marriage, yet what Christian in his sober mind would not prefer catholic Christian women who have been even more than once married, to not only vestals, but also to heretical virgins? So great is the avail of faith, of which the apostle says, "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" and of which it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Without faith it is impossible to please God."
BOOK I, CHAP. 9 --THIS DISEASE OF CONCUPISCENCE IN MARRIAGE IS NOT TO BE A MATTER OF WILL, BUT OF NECESSITY; WHAT OUGHT TO BE THE WILL OF BELIEVERS IN THE USE OF MATRIMONY; WHO IS TO BE REGARDED AS USING, AND NOT SUCCUMBING TO, THE EVIL OF CONCUPISCENCE; HOW THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT FORMERLY USED WIVES.
This disease of concupiscence is what the apostle refers to, when, speaking to married believers, he says: "This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the disease of desire, even as the Gentiles which know not God." The married believer, therefore, must not only not use another man’s vessel, which is what they do who lust after others’ wives; but he must know that even his own vessel is not to be possessed in the disease of carnal concupiscence. And this counsel is not to be understood as if the apostle prohibited conjugal - that is to say, lawful and honourable - cohabitation; but so as that that cohabitation (which would have no adjunct of unwholesome lust, were it not that man’s perfect freedom of choice had become by preceding sin so disabled that it has this fatal adjunct) should not be a matter of will, but of necessity, without which, nevertheless, it would be impossible to attain to the fruition of the will itself in the procreation of children. And this wish is not in the marriages of believers determined by the purpose of having such children born as shall pass through life in this present world, but such as shall be born again in Christ, and remain in Him for evermore. Now if this result should come about, the reward of a full felicity will spring from marriage; but if such result be not realized, there will yet ensue to the married pair the peace of their good will. Whosoever possesses his vessel (that is, his wife) with this intention of heart, certainly does not possess her in the "disease of desire," as the Gentiles which know not God, but in sanctification and honour, as believers who hope in God. A man turns to use the evil of concupiscence, and is not overcome by it, when he bridles and restrains its rage, as it works in inordinate and indecorous motions; and never relaxes his hold upon it except when intent on offspring, and then controls and applies it to the carnal generation of children to be spiritually regenerated, not to the subjection of the spirit to the flesh in a sordid servitude. That the holy fathers of olden times after Abraham, and before him, to whom God gave His testimony that "they pleased Him," thus used their wives, no one who is a Christian ought to doubt, since it was permitted to certain individuals amongst them to have a plurality of wives, where the reason was for the multiplication of their offspring, not the desire of varying gratification.
Medieval Sourcebook:
St. Augustin: Anti-Pelagian Writings
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf105.xvi.v.v.html?highlight=procreation#highlight
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf105.xvi.v.ix.html?highlight=this,disease,of,concupiscence#highlight
Chapter XII.—Importance of Chastity.
“But this kind of chastity is also to be observed, that sexual intercourse must not take place heedlessly and for the sake of mere pleasure, but for the sake of begetting children.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vi.iii.viii.xii.html?highlight=sexual#highlight
ANF08. The Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementia, Apocrypha, Decretals, Memoirs of Edessa and Syriac Documents, Remains of the First
Now the end which nature intends in sexual union is the begetting and rearing of the offspring. and that this good might be sought after, it attached pleasure to the union; as Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i, 8). Accordingly to make use of sexual intercourse on account of its inherent pleasure, without reference to the end for which nature intended it, is to act against nature, as also is it if the intercourse be not such as may fittingly be directed to that end.
Summa Theologica
Author: Thomas Aquinas, Saint (1225?-1274)
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.XP_Q65_A3.html?highlight=sexual#highlight
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