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/
My answer is not in any context, but it's an example that has stuck with me since 1970.
If you've done geometry out to the edge of your capacity, you've had this experience. The teacher or the text will assign you an "original", that is, a proposition to prove or a problem to solve on your own, as opposed to something that Euclid or someone did and you have to understand it.
And you struggle for an hour, maybe more. You try this line of attack, you try that, NOTHING gets you there. You're on the verge of blasphemy or tears.
Then, as we say,"it comes to you." And that formulation is, I think, VERY important. Truth is self-disclosing. When we "Get it", it's more often an experience of RECEIVING it, though our language also admits of the meaning "grasp" or "seize". "Comprehend" and "concept" are both words which have the sense of grasping or seizing. But it's interesting the the English word "get" and the Greek work "lambano" both can have the very active sense of grasp (Get him!) or a more passive sense of receive( "I got a letter yesterday").
Now, in that moment when you "get it", there is NEITHER any question of turning away or rejecting it, nor any apprehension of loss of freedom. The gift, as it seems, of "Getting it" delivers freedom, it doesn't take it away, and yet there is no question, at the time, of using one's freedom to reject the gift.
I've had similar experiences with fixing machinery, which neither my background not my inclination suits me to do.
So that is how one cooperates without effort or any sense of deserving merit, in the popular or common sense of the word. Who claims merit for eating food that is set before one when one is starving? One would have to be very sick indeed for eating to be an effort.
I'm not coming down on one side or the other of a theological dispute, not here. I am saying many of us have had an experience where something very like revelation overwhelmed our so-called "free will" and we found that overwhelming to be a gain, not a loss, of freedom.
My answer is not in any context, but it's an example that has stuck with me since 1970.
If you've done geometry out to the edge of your capacity, you've had this experience. The teacher or the text will assign you an "original", that is, a proposition to prove or a problem to solve on your own, as opposed to something that Euclid or someone did and you have to understand it.
And you struggle for an hour, maybe more. You try this line of attack, you try that, NOTHING gets you there. You're on the verge of blasphemy or tears.
Then, as we say,"it comes to you." And that formulation is, I think, VERY important. Truth is self-disclosing. When we "Get it", it's more often an experience of RECEIVING it, though our language also admits of the meaning "grasp" or "seize". "Comprehend" and "concept" are both words which have the sense of grasping or seizing. But it's interesting the the English word "get" and the Greek work "lambano" both can have the very active sense of grasp (Get him!) or a more passive sense of receive( "I got a letter yesterday").
Now, in that moment when you "get it", there is NEITHER any question of turning away or rejecting it, nor any apprehension of loss of freedom. The gift, as it seems, of "Getting it" delivers freedom, it doesn't take it away, and yet there is no question, at the time, of using one's freedom to reject the gift.
I've had similar experiences with fixing machinery, which neither my background not my inclination suits me to do.
So that is how one cooperates without effort or any sense of deserving merit, in the popular or common sense of the word. Who claims merit for eating food that is set before one when one is starving? One would have to be very sick indeed for eating to be an effort.
I'm not coming down on one side or the other of a theological dispute, not here. I am saying many of us have had an experience where something very like revelation overwhelmed our so-called "free will" and we found that overwhelming to be a gain, not a loss, of freedom.
It is very different indeed.
As to being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, this is something that is experienced by all believers. Spending a life in seclusion from society does not deepen the indwelling for when we are saved we have as much of the Spirit as we are going to have. Spending extended time in the Word can certainly deepen our understanding of it, and usually does, but it does not make us perfect people.
Your monastic appears (and I only say this because none of us truly knows the inward man)to have spent his life devoted to God. He did not become a perfect human though (not that you were claiming perfection for him). If what he said was in conflict with Scripture (and I hold that it was in this instance), it should be rejected no matter how blessed is memory was.
God does not await us in the sense of Him reacting to what we are going to do. When we become ready, it is only because the Spirit has already been at work in our lives. Again, it is all His initiative, His drawing, His wooing, and His sovereign action on our minds and hearts by supplying us with believing faith. Faith itself is, after all, a fruit of the Spirit.
So even taking the most cynical, Machiavellian POV, you'd suspect that the Pope isn't going to rear back and "declare and define" without a sense that "the Church", or a big chunk of it, is behind him. He may not need legions or divisions to back him up, but the heating bill at the Vatican has got to be heroic.
And at least on the two great Marian pronouncements, the Pope has not spoken without a lot of urging from the Church over time and space. So, I'm suggesting, FUNCTIONALLY it's like there's a charism given to the Church as a big, huge blob, and another charism given to the Successor of Peter as something like a pressure valve.
Fr. John Richard Neuhaus interestingly phrased the doctrine of Papal infallibility in negative terms. Not "Whatever the Pope says is true," but "The Pope won't 'declare and define' something that ain't so."
So it's not like the entire Church is sitting there like lumps until the Pope says something or other. It's more like everybody is saying, "Come on, say such and such," and then the Pope does or he doesn't.
That way his uniqueness is seen as not isolated, but part of a great, complicated, fermenting, and very alive mess -- which, after a little more than a decade of experience accords well with what the RCC looks like in real time.
To me this mitigates and renders a tad more palatable the idea of the Pope having special mojo. As a group we ALL have mojo, and the Pope is the "governor" in the mechanical sense.
Very well put, but I'd add that there is a real danger in such a hypothesis, because, as we see often, it leads to pride.
"Spending a life in seclusion from society does not deepen the indwelling for when we are saved we have as much of the Spirit as we are going to have."
Here is something else the archimandrite wrote:
"While we are still in this life we shall often waver in our self-determining, hesitating whether to fulfill the commandments or give way to our passions. Gradually, as we struggle, the mystery of Christ will be revealed to us if we devote ourselves totally to obeying His precepts. The moment will come when heart and mind are so suffused by the vision of the infinite holiness and humility of the God-Christ that our whole being will rise in a surge of love for God."
You see, herein lies the difference. Even before the end of the Roman persecutions, men and women went into the desert to live lives of prayer and seclusion, withdrawing from the world. The hope was and is that such a life might lead to a death to the self so that one's entire existence is focused solely on God. The result of such a dying to the self is this:
"When the intellect has been perfected, it unites wholly with God and is illumined by divine light, and the most hidden mysteries are revealed to it. Then it truly learns where wisdom and power lie.... While it is still fighting against the passions it cannot as yet enjoy these things.... But once the battle is over and it is found worthy of spiritual gifts, then it becomes wholly luminous, powerfully energized by grace and rooted in the contemplation of spiritual realities. A person in whom this happens is not attached to the things of this world but has passed from death to life." +Thalassios
Put another way, +Symeon the New Theologian wrote this:
"Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?' says the wise Solomon. And I say: can he, who has in his heart the Divine fire of the Holy Spirit burning naked, not be set on fire, not shine and glitter and not take on the radiance of the Deity in the degree of his purification and penetration by fire? For penetration by fire follows upon purification of the heart, and again purification of the heart follows upon penetration by fire, that is, inasmuch as the heart is purified, so it receives Divine grace, and again inasmuch as it receives grace, so it is purified. When this is completed (that is, purification of heart and acquisition of grace have attained their fullness and perfection), through grace a man becomes wholly a god."
For Eastern Christians, this describes the fulfillment of God's plan for us at creation, lost in the Fall and restored by the Incarnation.
Absolutely Christ is divine. This is why most accurately Mary is described as Mother of God.
The minute you say "wooing" we have you.
I feel like that's what we've been saying all along. Wooing is ALL ABOUT asking permission - -don't you remember? And yet, if you know your business, you know the permission will be granted when you ask it.
The problem is, Does God wnat lapdogs or free humans? Yes there's a sense, I tried to address is above in the post about geometry, in which we are swallowed up, overwhelmed, ravished and glad to be so. But the lover always wants to hear the freely given "yes," of the beloved. He can compel a "yes," surely, but what is that worth? The challenge of wooing is to get a free yes, and yet the wooer knows he will get one, as I say, if he knows his craft.
He is such a sovereign that His subjects freely, eagerly, and joyfully grant him Sovereignty
LOL! I'm afraid my knee-jerk reaction would be quite unoriginal for a Protestant. I would make a strong distinction in my mind between phrases like this and "Most Holy Theotokos, pray for our salvation". To me, the supplications appear to be immeasurably different. One asks for the action of prayer for salvation by God, and one asks for salvation itself, appearing that Mary could possibly have anything to do with saving us today.
You are right. Ptolemy taught of the rotating spheres. So, the concept of flat earth somehow coexisted with the roundness of the world as a whole. Indeed, as one observes the sky with the naked eye, he sees the visible universe round, but the earth flat.
"I would make a strong distinction in my mind between phrases like this and "Most Holy Theotokos, pray for our salvation". To me, the supplications appear to be immeasurably different. One asks for the action of prayer for salvation by God, and one asks for salvation itself, appearing that Mary could possibly have anything to do with saving us today."
Of course you would make such a distinction! You couldn't do otherwise. The veneration of Panagia is not for those who are not Latin, Oriental or Orthodox Christians. Once people have been fully converted to what we all believe is The Church, the love of the Panagia follows naturally. A very wise Greek Orthodox priest and marvelous pastor once explained the quoted refrain thusly, while advising that the Akathist is really no place for the heterodox for exactly the reasons your reaction demonstrates.
"The pious (Orthodox/Catholic) believer knows firsthand that Jesus is his Savior, but the drowning man does not cry out to the lifeguard, "Intercede for me!"
In Catholic debate, the Pope is the last instance. All disputes previously unresolved end in him. So, one can have confidence, inasmuch as he knows the mind of the Church as expressed by the Pope.
Again, -- I said it before -- this "everyone's a pope" rap is a caricature. It is only accurate on some metaphorical level. When someone tells me "The Holy Ghost taught me that 'by works a man is justified; and not by faith only' (James 2:24) means the opposite of what it states" all I can say is, -- Gee, who made you pope?
The distinction is that when I ask Steve for prayer, I'm not asking him to do anything other than pray to God on my behalf. I am not asking Steve to act on my supplication to God. Those are very different things. If I thought that Steve was in a position to personally grant me strength (or whatever), then I would just ask him for it. I wouldn't ask him for his prayer to God. If I asked him, and Steve could not give me the wisdom or advice for strength, etc., THEN I would ask him for prayer. Sometimes I might do both, but that would only be when I wanted more than Steve could give me. The point is that you are NOT simply asking for prayer, as has been advertised. You are asking for specific action other than prayer.
If you pray to a Saint for a specific action other than prayer, I'm guessing you think the Saint has the power to grant your request. Therefore, there is no need to "bother" God with it. I see this as problematic for several reasons, one being that it specifically diminishes your dependence on God.
Sorry, Kolo. But his experience reminds me a bit of Buddhism.
Christ did not call us to seclude ourselves from the world in any permanent way. There are times where we may take time for a retreat to refocus. But entire lives divorced from society seem antipathous to the Great Commission. John lived in the desert, but eventually came out for ministry. Paul apparently spent some time learning, but boy did he engage himself when his ministry kicked into gear! Being in the world but not of it means we actually have to be IN the world.
With that said, meditation and focus on Christ and Scripture will most certainly reap spiritual benefits. We grow through these things and become more like Christ.
I will reiterate though, we do have as much of the Spirit as we are ever going to have when we are saved. Throughout life, He works in our lives so that more and more He has more of us (not speaking of our souls, but rather our devotion).
Thank you so much for sharing that Creed!
Thank you so much for your encouragements!
I Cor 12-14 is not all that obscure.
Folks who collect together for worship, study, teaching as described in I Cor 12-14 should at least soon be able to prayerfully discern what is authentic and what is not BY HOLY SPIRIT'S AGENCY.
Either He helped settle the canon in those similar meetings, or He didn't.
If He didn't, then all is up for grabs.
If He did, then we can have confidence about the canon's essentials, at least--PARTICULARLY as HE LEADS earnest Believers in to all truth about those Scriptures--bit by bit, step by step in the life of each believer, uniquely tailored to the needs and God ordained growth in each believer with their varying degrees of cooperation in being conformed to the image of DADDY'S SON.
Similarly, if a local congregation meets to assess the accuracy, Holy Spirit birthedness, of a given prophetic/Holy Spirit gifts input . . . then there ought to be SOME varying degree of confidence about that--not flawlessly--but some reasonable degree of confidence.
Why not flawlessly? It's not the Canon that's concerned.
And, of less significnace but still a real factor--There hasn't been several hundred years of such discernment and groups operating on a given input/msg/document.
Individuals as described operating in Holy Spirit and He in them I Cor 12-14 are not described therein as little popes. INDEED, THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE would include mention of a local congregation finding a humble wise old codger to help decide matters--especially vs taking them to a secular court.
Note that Paul did not say find the Bishop. Go to the Cardinal. Call the college of Cardinals; Collect the leading "fathers" [talk about Scriptural violation there! LOL] together to decide the issue; call the magesterium . . .
Instead, call on some humble wise old--probably out of the limelight--old codger--perhaps someone with food in his beard and plenty of burps out at least one end . . . but who is humble and wise . . . let him decide the matter.
There's no hint of bureaucracy there.
There's no hint of collective hierarchical leadership speaking from on high, there.
There's no hint of professional clergy deciding major issues there.
There's no hint of professional sanctimonious theological experts directing the serfs there--it's QUITE THE OPPOSITE--THE SERF DIRECTS THE CONGREGATION FROM WISDOM AND HUMILITY.
There's no hint of layering on bleachers full of fleshly elevated pontificators with a chief flesh driven pontificator propped up with a whole edifice of tradition and vain glorious adorations and elevations driven by the flesh for the glory of the flesh vs the glory of God.
There's no hint of trumped up justification for bureaucratic CONTROL--HEAVY HANDED CONTROL--OF THE IGNORANT SERFS.
There's no hint of the ignorant serfs being unable to handle life and spirituality on their own without magehysterical-ium inputs from on high.
There's no hint of GOD ALONE PLUS A CAST OF tens of THOUSANDS to say what God REALLY meant given He's so inadequate to the job.
There's no hint there of God checking in with the multi-layered bureaucracy to be sure He doesn't get it wrong according to THEIR PONTIFICAL CONTROL FREQUENESSES.
Seems pretty clear, to me. No little popes. Just brothers and sisters following Scripture AND HOLY SPIRIT. Rather like
GOD DESIGNED IT, PLANNED IT; EXECUTED IT TO BE.
This is why most accurately Mary is described as Mother of God.
= = = =
BALDERDASH; HOGWASH AND GUFFAWS TO THE MAX.
Mary is called the MOTHER OF GOD as a political; influence-and-control-the-masses POLITICAL MOVE from a specific point in history for specific monetary benefits to the bureaucracy.
It robs God of a portion of glory and adoration HE ALONE deserves.
It diminishes God more toward the level of Mary HIS MOTHER! SHEESH! So obviously.
And, it must, MUST grieve Mary in Heaven sorely.
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