Tradition.
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/
"You do good when you type fast. I'm beginning to get the flavor. This is very good. Who's the big guy to read on this? (By "this" I guess I mean "sin, death, atonement in Orthodox Thought 101")"
Generally read the Cappadocian Fathers, +Symeon the new Theologian, +John of Damascus and of course +John Chrysostomos.
The "graffito" you mention is on the front of most Orthodox altar tables and is stamped into the leavened loaf we use for the consecration at the Divine Liturgy.
The "stomping" story you mention is from +john Chrysostomos' Pascal Sermon which is read at every Paschal resurrection Divine Liturgy in Orthodoxy. It is also graphically illustrated in the icon of the Resurrection.
An angel taps them on the shoulder?
It's not binary, you know. Not everyone who knows more than I knows everything.
Okay, except my daughter, when she was 13.
My alleged point is that there are possible gradations here. Mary might not be good at geometry or quantum machanics. She's as good as we need her to be at the stuff we need her to be good at.
We have a very expansive view of what it's like to be with God. You can guess how large the vision is when you read Athanasius.
"Not one microscopic shred of Scripture supports the least bit of that."
Maybe not in your world. That is where we differ. You have your "If it's not specifically spelled out in modern day terms here in the bible than it can't possibly be true" religion and I have my "read the bible as a whole and see how it melds together instead of pulling out one verse here and one verse there" religion.
Scripture has been given time and time again and you choose to not see it. Whatever. Thankfully, I have the Church God gave us and His promise to not let the gates of hell prevail against it. I have the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church with it's complete Bible and rich history and Tradition. All these arguments have been hashed out over and over again in the past. I can go back and see what others believed and how they came to those conclusions and compare it to what I have read and what I believe. You have your interpretation and I have mine which is backed by the Church. I feel sorry for you that you are missing out on so much with the narrow and unbiblical Sola Scriptura.
Not only do I read the bible on my own but I get to hear the entire thing read to me in Mass over the course of three years. If I don't make it to Mass that day I read the daily readings. I get the connection between Old and New every day. I was telling a friend earlier how much I love the Bible and all the mysteries it holds for me. I love discovering/learning how it all melds together. Even though I've already read it, I get a deeper understanding and appreciate for it daily.
The way the Sola Scriptura crowd is constantly crying, "Where is that in Scripture?" gets so old! It's insulting, really. It's implying that we don't know the bible. It's so tiring! Yes, I realize that is a weakness of my own that I need to get over. Offer it up to God.
As I understand it, you're appealing to God. Is that correct?
THanks. Let me irritatingly impose one more time. Gimme some real live titles that a former shepherd (both spiritual and sho' 'nuff) and former LEO can afford. I'll read them happily. The little reading I've done among the orthodox has always been entirely excellent. I think I'll focus on reunion for Lent. I DO think we RCs have something, a lot, to offer, but I also feel a lack which I have a hunch can be filled by closer relations.
These are tough times. I know we need you, I dare say you need us. Wouldn't it just be great if we could work it out?
I'll agree you can't "prove" it from scripture. But I'll say again that we Roaming Calflicks don't look at Scripture the way many Protestants do.
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No personal offense, but I'm unable to file that under the "admirable" category.
The religious leaders of Jesus' dusty pathed days
FOLLOWED SCRIPTURE which they had memorized . . .
but then, they haggled endlessly and put burden upon burden on the serf's shoulders
WITH THEIR THOUSANDS OF MINUTELY DETAILED INTERPRETATIONS AND AMIPLIFICATIONS ETC. OF SCRIPTURE.
And it is Scripturally clear what Jesus thought of THAT!
The RC edifice doesn't even do that well--it builds myriads of customs and rituals upon . . .
NOT EVEN SCRIPTURE
but political and other flesh driven choices, priorities, goals . . . some as cheap as raising money for more army . . .
and now centuries later wants Protestants and the world to accept all such nonsense as Christian Doctrine fitting for more or less blind belief and practice????
Please excuse me. But my stomach is not up to that.
"read the bible as a whole and see how it melds together . . . religion.
= = = =
Not in my observation.
But I do that--as do the Bible believing Protestants I know.
We'd be delighted if more Roman believers did CONSIDER THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE AS A BALANCED WHOLE.
We consider it a scriptural whole which is why we Church doctrine is all scripturally based. Again, your interpretation vs. those that learned from the Apostles. Hhhmmm...
"Gimme some real live titles that a former shepherd (both spiritual and sho' 'nuff) and former LEO can afford. I'll read them happily."
Try +Gregory Nazianzus' Second Oration on Pascha. Here's a snip (Sec. XXII)
"Now we are to examine another fact and dogma, neglected by most people, but in my judgment well worth enquiring into. To Whom was that Blood offered that was shed for us, and why was It shed? I mean the precious and famous Blood of our God and High priest and Sacrifice. We were detained in bondage by the Evil One, sold under sin, and receiving pleasure in exchange for wickedness. Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds in bondage, I ask to whom was this offered, and for what cause? If to the Evil One, fie upon the outrage! If the robber receives ransom, not only from God, but a ransom which consists of God Himself, and has such an illustrious payment for his tyranny, a payment for whose sake it would have been right for him to have left us alone altogether. But if to the Father, I ask first, how? For it was not by Him that we were being oppressed; and next, On what principle did the Blood of His Only begotten Son delight the Father, Who would not receive even Isaac, when he was being offered by his Father, but changed the sacrifice, putting a ram in the place of the human victim?68 Is it not evident that the Father accepts Him, but neither asked for Him nor demanded Him; but on account of the Incarnation, and because Humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself, and overcome the tyrant, and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son, Who also arranged this to the honour of the Father, Whom it is manifest that He obeys in all things? So much we have said of Christ; the greater part of what we might say shall be reverenced with silence. But that brazen serpent was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpents, not as a type of Him that suffered for us, but as a contrast; and it saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live, but because it was killed, and killed with it the powers that were subject to it, being destroyed as it deserved. And what is the fitting epitaph for it from us? "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Thou art overthrown by the Cross; thou art slain by Him who is the Giver of life; thou art without breath, dead, without motion, even though thou keepest the form of a serpent lifted up on high on a pole."
I'll find some more tomorrow. By the way, what's LEO?
I'm repulsive to most people, Maybe God finds me appealing.
No, Wait. That's not what you meant.
Kidding aside, I'm not sure what you meant, and I'm about to turn in.
I think the blessed are with God. I think while we can deduce certain aspects of what that must mean, we can scarcely imagine.
But God is outside of time. To be with Him is certainly going to involve a certain freedom from time as we on earth experience time. Even we in prayer, and in love, (come on, admit it) have had time dilate. I know when somebody came at me with felonious assault in his eyes and a club in his hands, time REALLY dilated, as did space.
And St. Peter describes God's experience of time as slow ( a minute like a thousand years) or Fast ( a thousand years like a minute) So I figure that that suggests at least that those who are with God can handle a full in-box.
Sometime read Dante's Paradiso. The whole Commedia is a wonderful wonderful poem. But in the Paradiso, in that wonderful, eager, child-like, medieval way, he manages to convey some of the freedom of the Blessed from normal time and space considerations which we take for granted. C.S. Lewis also does well, though in hints you might miss if you aren't looking for them, in The Last Battle, and in Perelandra.
The Blessed, allow me to suggest, are those who have received completely the gifts which God yearns to give us. Since those gifts are infinite, their reception overwhelms considerations of time and space.
And God came in Christ to make it possible for us, mere creatures, "begotten in a bed", to share in His nature. And He IS sacrificial Love. We know this because when He came among us to reveal Himself perfectly, what we saw was squalling, weeping, sweating, dying, triumphant, and glorious Love - sacrificial, that is, doing a holy thing.
And what I look forward to, what I long for, is to join Him in the dance of the eternal sacrifice of eternal love.
The silly way to say this, and I am nothing if not silly, as I said to someone in Freepmail, is Heaven is like a Gaston and Alphonse cartoon: "Thank you.' No, thank YOU!", No, excuse me, but thank YOU!" and then everybody smiles and laughs and embraces.
But at least before the end of the world, when we will learn what a "holy thing" truly is, right now it means reaching out, listening, being in the presence of God with others in our hearts.
And so here and now(which is the only place where we can possibly contact God in his eternal Now and omnipresent Here) we meet God and the blessed, and they hear us, and weep and bleed and rejoice and triumph for us, and we in Him -- and in Him also in them.
Yes, it's not rational argument. It's what I see, and I scarcely know what to think about it.
"Do you believe God required a sacrifice and that Christ was our substitution on the cross who paid our penalty?"
Sort of depends on who was demanding what, HD. Here's an answer well within the consensus patrum from +Gregory Nazianzus:
"Now we are to examine another fact and dogma, neglected by most people, but in my judgment well worth enquiring into. To Whom was that Blood offered that was shed for us, and why was It shed? I mean the precious and famous Blood of our God and High priest and Sacrifice. We were detained in bondage by the Evil One, sold under sin, and receiving pleasure in exchange for wickedness. Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds in bondage, I ask to whom was this offered, and for what cause? If to the Evil One, fie upon the outrage! If the robber receives ransom, not only from God, but a ransom which consists of God Himself, and has such an illustrious payment for his tyranny, a payment for whose sake it would have been right for him to have left us alone altogether. But if to the Father, I ask first, how? For it was not by Him that we were being oppressed; and next, On what principle did the Blood of His Only begotten Son delight the Father, Who would not receive even Isaac, when he was being offered by his Father, but changed the sacrifice, putting a ram in the place of the human victim?68 Is it not evident that the Father accepts Him, but neither asked for Him nor demanded Him; but on account of the Incarnation, and because Humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself, and overcome the tyrant, and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son, Who also arranged this to the honour of the Father, Whom it is manifest that He obeys in all things? So much we have said of Christ; the greater part of what we might say shall be reverenced with silence. But that brazen serpent was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpents, not as a type of Him that suffered for us, but as a contrast; and it saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live, but because it was killed, and killed with it the powers that were subject to it, being destroyed as it deserved. And what is the fitting epitaph for it from us? "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Thou art overthrown by the Cross; thou art slain by Him who is the Giver of life; thou art without breath, dead, without motion, even though thou keepest the form of a serpent lifted up on high on a pole."
Here's what I've got out of what folks are saying about God and praying to saints.
1. The saints are not omniscient or omnipresent.
2. They pray to the Saint.
3. God hears the prayer and lets them know that someone's praying to them to have them pray to Him for them.
4. They then pray to Him.
5. God answers their prayer (in some manner.)
Since God is telling the saint to pray to Him, anyway, why not just pray to God in the first place?
Cut out the middleman.
Tradition.
I love that movie.
My favorite part is in "If I were a Rich Man" when Tevia is Shake-Steppin' on the Barn Rafters.
It would break tradition. And how did the tradition develop? My guess is it was a part of the same mentality as those who gathered Polycarp's bones and counted them "more precious than the richest jewels and more tried than gold."
They loved and admired their leader and so carefully gathered his bones. Doesn't mean that they prayed to him. But they did honor him.
It didn't take long though before people were praying to Saints in Heaven (as opposed to the Saints on earth as there is no distinction amongst Christians, St. Xzins).
It would be interesting to trace that development. I'm sure someone somewhere has done their thesis on it!
We consider it a scriptural whole which is why we Church doctrine is all scripturally based. Again, your interpretation vs. those that learned from the Apostles. Hhhmmm...
= = =
No
"vs"
involved at all.
I go by what the Apostles said IN SCRIPTURE.
Where there are not clear core issues involved, I extend grace for differences of itnerpretation. Core issues are clearly laid out in Scripture.
Inferring, extrapolating, pontificating, elaborating . . . ADDING TO--vs the exhortation in Revelations NOT TO . . .
all such are more than suspect, to me.
They are akin to the religious rulers of Jesus' dusty pathed days adding layers upon layers of THEIR pontifications to Scripture--to Moses' Pentatuch particularly.
Dangerous doings, that.
Paragraphs are our friends.
I just usually refuse to read text that is massed in more than 7-12 lines.
Aging eyes need microrests.
Cut out the middleman.
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INDEED!
PARTICULARLY since that's, in a very real and important sense, what Christ died, to do.
Tradition . . .
= = =
I canNOT think of a single case--even a whiff of a case where Christ said
ANYTHING POSITIVE
about tradition.
Certainly not to the experts on tradition of His earthly days.
I'll take Christ's opinion about tradition--especially traditions of men
and even traditions of God layered over with flesh driven pontifications of men . . .
I'll take Christ's opinion of traditions ANY DAY over those glory-ing in traditions, defending such.
It didn't take long though before people were praying to Saints in Heaven (as opposed to the Saints on earth as there is no distinction amongst Christians, St. Xzins).
It would be interesting to trace that development. I'm sure someone somewhere has done their thesis on it!
= = =
I'd love to read that, too.
Seems like I read something similar decades ago.
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