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/
The spheres were assumed to be "in heaven" and anything in heaven could only be perfect, which is what spheres are.
Potlemy's real contribution was to affirm the old World Order by creating a set of mathematical formulae that predicted the orbit of any of the observed celestial bodies at any time and gave birth to modern navigation.
The beauty of Ptolemy's success is that is ti based on a false premise, and earth being flat was not it.
Ptolemy's system was based on the model that has the earth at the center, and everything else (including the Sun) in orbit around us.
This scientific model only reinforced Aristotle's "explanation' why things fall on earth, i.e. gravity ("because things fall towards the center") and the Church teaching that man and earth are God's central creation.
Here we have science, philosophy and religion converging and reaching the same (independent) conclusion. This is how we nowadays come to "truth." The convincing power of three most important fields of knowledge of that time established an order of truth that was almost unshakable, even when presented with clear-cut evidence to the contrary.
If God is our physician, the monasteries are His clinics. If what the Physician prescribes works, there is where the proof can be found.
I'm sorry, I still don't see the distinction. Muslims and Mormons have faith in "the God who inspired" their scriptures also.
Maybe this part is of your reply provides more of a way:
We can look at reality and see how well God's word matches up to it...
How so?
A well-putting of that which is hard to put.
'True' is something we know by direct personal experience.
parallell universe to the max.
Amen.
In the Old Testament, Israel did not have an infallible interpreter of the Scriptures. So why should that be true in the New Testament?
Rome would have us believe the pope, a single man, is the final arbiter of Scripture and God's word.
But Jesus relied on a canon that didn't have such a singular, worldly source. Rather, the canon was something recognized collectively by the people of God.
And this is because the people of God believe the Holy Spirit leads their understanding and guides them in all truth. As Christ explained...
He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." -- John 16:13-14"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
Now we can question if a man is truly being led by the Holy Spirit, but we can never doubt that the Holy Spirit does lead all those who have been saved, as Christ said and as God ordained. So individually and collectively, we measure everything against Scripture because the Holy Spirit speaks through the word of God and not through the mouth of one human being who presumes to stand above all others.
We kneel to none but Christ.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
Didn't expect such from your corner! LOL.
But very well put.
I think the infallibility issue is a key connection to humility and to unity of spirit instead of unity of cookie-cutter-identical-mind-lock sameness.
IF and when a prophet becomes infallible in hearing and speaking for God . . . pride is a huge threat from then on. And Scripture indicates that all the other evils easily ride in on pride.
Flawdedness keeps at least the alert and awake belivers of broken and contrite hearts before God leaning ever more intensely in His direction rather than
ASSUMING--well, I have this hearing and speaking for God stuff all in a bag--so, NOW HEAR THIS ALL YE SERFS!
I believe there will be folks in this era humble after the manner of Moses and who hear accurately and speak accurately for God.
I don't know that there will be lots of them.
I think that it will be much MORE common for a collection of folks in a local congregation or geographic area who will each individual have bits and pieces of the puzzle to contribute but which Holy Spirit will retain the title and function of puzzle master and arranger. And not until all those with their bits and pieces contribute their bits and pieces in humility, self-lessness, love and faith--will the whole message be clear and functional.
I think that will even be true about God's desire for application of Scripture in a certain specific situation as well as prophetic inputs from God about where to go and how to avoid disaster in the earthly realm with the Anti-Christ's forces abroad in the land.
must my 25 cents.
Welll, we have to keep all those galactic clusters; parallel universes and extra dimensions straight.
We can't have the magesterical get all aflutter because someone's hair was in the wrong place.
At least for that encyclical cycle.
I mean, obviously hairs were in the wrong place comparing one century to the next or a few later.
But it's important to get very good at pretending in THE PRESENT TIME that truth hasn't changed any as distributed by the magesterical.
At least, as I understand things in this parallel universe and dimension and edificical matrix.
No. Mary is called the mother of God, because she is. the mother of God.
"It robs God of a portion of glory and adoration HE ALONE deserves. "
No. It takes away nothing from God, in fact it was His plan.
"It diminishes God more toward the level of Mary HIS MOTHER! SHEESH! So obviously. "
What's wrong with having a mother? Do you thinks folks are diminished, because they had a mother?
"And, it must, MUST grieve Mary in Heaven sorely.
I'm sure she understands, and so does her son.
The thought so nice, I posted it twice! I've got to figure out how I do that, so I can stop.
I was wondering if any of the "educated" in the west ever forgot the round world deal. The problem the round worlders had with Columbus was not that he'd fall off the edge but that they knew the Indies were way further away than he said they were.
When you choose an unfortunate metaphor, I'd ask you not to make personal comments when the logical consequences of your metaphor are used to make a point you don't like and didn't foresee. The use of your words to show the possible areas of examination in your thought is not a hostile action and does not call for a hostile response. If you don't want your assertions to be examined, don't make any.
Wooing is NOT about asking permission.
Are you kidding? So you went to your future wife and said, "We're getting married." And she said, "Whatever." I bet. And even in an arranged marriage, the bride can acquiesce willingly or unwillingly.
And I wasn't talking about wooing in the old days, and didn't know you were. I was talking about wooing right now. Any son of a gun comes to my daughter and says, "We're getting married, the choice is all mine," he'll have me to contend with, and it will be ugly.
For the rest of it, we are not communicating. One doesn't make a refutation by asserting the contrary. One makes it with argument. I agree the initiative is all His. I've said it over and over and over and over and over and over again. And you never seem to hear it. I keep saying it, I've said repeatedly that works and merit are gifts, and I gave an example of how the self-disclosure of the Truth bestows freedom rather than taking it away at 7801. And yet you respond as if I'd never said these things.
You set up metaphors, like sovereignty and then won't allow them to be explored. Look, a sovereign can have willing subjects or unwilling subjects. Even if the sovereign comes into a city and overwhelms it, he still can make those he subjugates willing to have him as lord, or he can make them unwilling and resentful subjects. This is plain in history, in fiction, and in Machiavelli. So to pretend that I am saying that God depends on us for his sovereignty is, well, incomprehensible nonsense totally unsupported by what I've posted.
Get back to me when you want to converse. I've made every effort to be civil.
"Sorry, Kolo. But his experience reminds me a bit of Buddhism."
Christian monasticism, on the surface, isn't just a bit like Buddhism, it appears to be alot like Buddhism and various forms of Hindouism. The ultimate purpose, however, as I am sure you can and do appreciate, is quite different. As I said in my earlier post, Christian monasticism is known from the first days of Christianity. +John the Baptist, as you will remember, lived the life of a solitary in the desert as other men and women do to this day and have since the Resurrection. The deserts of the Holy Land, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Western Iraq, Sudan and Ethiopia are filled, literally, with the ruins of monasteries and the cave dwellings of monks. All of Eastern Europe is filled with them. In the West, monasticism was firmly established by the very holy +Benedict of Nursia in the late 5th - early 6th centuries.
The monks and nuns pray for their own repentence and for the salvation of the whole world. The holiness of some of these people and places can be so intense that creation can be actually altered back to a pre-Fall state around them. They also often act as spiritual fathers and mothers to people who live in the world. Their very existence serves as a sort of spiritual beacon to the world. For us Orthodox and for many Latins, these holy people are our spiritual Olympians and in Orthodox cultures the people of the villages, who live "in the world" exist in a sort of synergistic relationship with the monastics in their monasteries (the desert) out on the mountains surrounding those villages.
Were you to make your comment about the Great Commission to a holy monastic, she or he would likely agree with you that it is indeed important to spread the Good News and then point out:
"Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you - [O] you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today." Matt. 6:26-34.
This is why Step 17 of the Ladder of Divine Ascent teaches monks:
"Let us monks, then, be as trustful as the birds are; for they have no cares, neither do they gather into barns." +John Climacus
The purpose of the Great Commission is to bring all humanity to the exact point, or at least the desire to be at the exact point, where the monastics are. The Word transforms men so that they die to the self and become like Christ. Sin dies when the old man dies. As sin dies, the distortion of all creation wrought by sin diminishes. Were all of humanity to become like the monastics, all creation would be restored to the pre-Fall state in which God created it. The lion would indeed lie down with the lamb. Christ's sacrifice not only restored our potential for theosis, it also, through our theosis, provided for the restoration of creation which our sin has sullied and perverted.
"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. "
Those are just sociolinguistic/psycholinguistic facts given the language and usage of that term.
Actually, in Orthodox experience, the Great Commission and monasticism are quite compatible: Siberia and Alaska were converted by monks going off to live lives of solitary holiness. Notably, St. Herman of Alaska, to whom many of the native peoples attribute their conversion, was a hermit (!).
The thing I see though Kolo is while I do agree it is quite different in many ways, by deprivation and seclusion many of the Holy men of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism came up with "Experiences" which they called connection with God (or Nirvana or whatever higher reality than themselves that they saw). Your monks may be in the same situation and the only way to determine that they are not is through careful comparison of their findings with Scripture.
Ridiculous.
"The thing I see though Kolo is while I do agree it is quite different in many ways, by deprivation and seclusion many of the Holy men of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism came up with "Experiences" which they called connection with God (or Nirvana or whatever higher reality than themselves that they saw)."
The ascetical practices of monastics, Christian or otherwise, have been at base well established for thousands of years. Man is hardwired for those practices. We were created that way, Blogger. When you look at pre-Christian, non Jewish forms of ascetisism, what you see is evidence of the "sporoi", the seeds, of the True Faith which are and likely always have been in man as part of the image of God in which we were created. There is quite a catelogue of these sporoi and they have been recognized by The Church from the beginning. The Greeks, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Egyptians all had notions, in some instances quite specific notions, of a "One" which transcends existence and which created everything including existence. Now we cannot say that these notions, while they might have influenced the spread of Christianity and even some of the praxis of both Christianity and Judaism, lead to theosis, nor, for that matter can we say they do not because the Spirit goes where He will. We can say, because we have 2000 years of experience with Christian monasticism, that Christian ascetical practices as observed and lived out in monasteries, does often result in great holiness. For 2000 years, B, The Church has compared the fruit of monastic lives against scripture and found it pleasing and in conformance with what one would expect, scripturally, to find.
Since the Reformation, for whatever reason, "Protestantism" has rejcted monasticism as a general proposition. But in terms of The Church, let alone in terms of human experience, that is really quite new and innovative. Are you aware of any Protestant efforts to compare monasticism and the spirtual fruits thereof with scripture? I don't mean the anti-monastic fulminations of politicians eager to seize monastic lands and assets but rather more precisely what you have said you would have to see.
I would think constant prayer and attention to God and giving up worldly possesions is quite scriptural. As for preserving and spreading the faith, I think Monastics have accomplished a great deal. The Desert Fathers and Mt. Athos come to mind but there are many more.
Shutting down the monasteries was a great loss for the Reformers. They lost a large part of the heart of their religion, IMHO. Making their Christianity more intellectual and rational, if you will, was a move in the wrong direction I believe.
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