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 whole point is being PRECISE in the language. Mother of GOD is not precise. It IS confusing. And, taken in its most natural sense would lead you in all sorts of directions.
God means all sorts of things. God the Father is God. God the Spirit is God. God the Son is God. Three persons, one God. Not three Gods. One God. Mother of God? What does that tell me. Nothing precise. Mother of Jesus tells me more.
Mother means all sorts of things and the nearly exclusive definition of a biological mother is one which includes preceding that which you bear.
I am told that "IS" in Jesus is God doesn't necessarily mean that God is Jesus. Why can't the same apply to Mary? Mary IS the mother of Jesus, who is God. But Mary is NOT the mother of God? After all, it is the incarnation and some leeway should be given to the miraculous.
Kolo, I have also been meaning to ask this. Is there a problem with saying Mother of God verses Bearer of God? I know that the Greek term is different for Mother and Bearer, though the "tokos" implies motherhood.
I would say, to be logically consistent, if I bear something I have to exist. The dictionary definition of mother includes one who is the source of a person or the origin of the person or concept/idea (i.e., mother of invention, etc.,).
The term Theotokos may have sufficed with the theological eggheads at Ephesus. Reading their explanations, their intent was good. But, I still say that the term is inappropriate for the reasons stated.
What you said was "Mother of Christ is fine,....". That's "Christotokos", which is exactly and precisely Nestorianism. If you want to be a Nestorian, that's fine with me. I thought that heresy had died out about 1600 years ago, but these discussions with you champions of Protestantism have taught me that many of the old heresies are alive and well.
Remember these words (I assume you do recite these words somewhere in your services)?
"And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not created, of one essence with the Father, through whom all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man."
Next time you recite the Creed think Theotokos, Blogger, not Christotokos. If you can't do that, don't mock the Creed by reciting something you don't believe.
Are you denying the Christ was God?
"Kolo, I have also been meaning to ask this. Is there a problem with saying Mother of God verses Bearer of God? I know that the Greek term is different for Mother and Bearer, though the "tokos" implies motherhood."
Really in this context the "tokos" part does mean mother, but you could call her the God bearer and be appropriate and correct to the extent that in this context bearer always means to be "the one who gave birth to". "Phoros" is the usual suffix used when we mean bearer in the sense of carrying as in "Christophoros" or "Theophoros" both of which are proper names.
The council of Ephesus was politically charged. Nestorius could have said anything and gotten pillaried. There is strong belief that Nestorius was NOT a Nestorian and was not guilty of what he was accused of . Chalcedon is said to have favored his views more - but alas we are dealing with men and agendas and sometimes what is truly appropriate gets lost in "getting even with the other Guy."
In the fact that Jesus the Christ and Mary was His mother, Christokos is NOT inappropriate. It does not tell the whole of who Jesus is. But it is truthful.
"Are you denying the Christ was God?"
I don't see a sarcasm tag, so I'll ask, "where, pray tell, did you get that idea from?"
"Christokos is NOT inappropriate"
Sure it is. The Ecumenical Council anathemized it and all who hold to it. Its heresy, Blogger, very basic heresy. Proclaiming that the Theotokos is in fact the Christotokos cuts one off absolutely from The Church. Now likely that doesn't bother you, which is fine. As I have said, you can believe whatever you want, but in all honesty, I don't think even Protestants hold by that idea. There are plenty of them lurking here. If that is a Protestant doctrine, I do want to know that.
I'm just taking a page from some of the accusations thrown at me on this thread. None of them had sarcasm tags either and even after I was explicit in believing that Jesus was 100% God and 100% Man in one person, I was accused of Nestorianism.
To be God, Christ's eternal pre-existence must be preserved. That Mary carried God in her womb I don't believe would be contested here. But Jesus brought his deity with him. It didn't have its origin, source, or anything else in Mary. He was HER God too. He was her Creator.
Mary as Mother of God is imprecise. It is fraught with difficulty (even though I know what the council was getting at and agree with their premise- I disagree with their title for the above mentioned reasons).
If I say God came to earth and through the agency of a human woman and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, became a man while still retaining His deity. That Man, was called Jesus. And, the name of His mother was Mary. Jesus was the Christ.
What is wrong with that statement?
I say they're not good propositions. Blogger says they are (unless I misunderstand him. And what that says to me is that we can say a lot of things about Blogger (AND I already bought the marhsmallows) but I don't think he's Nestorian. I MAY be, but not on purpose.
I think these are VERY tricky areas here, and we need to proceed with a WHOLE lot of patience and expectations of misssteps. At least I suspect I'll get a lot wrong.
This is an awesomely great chance to think about the Trinity, something I don't do that much.
You anathematized the Catholic church
From the Catechism:
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
SECTION TWO
Paragraph 6. Mary - Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church
Oooh, and Thomas Aquinas...
SUMMA THEOLOGICA: The virginity of the Mother of God (Tertia Pars ...
I answer that, We must confess simply that the Mother of Christ was a virgin in conceiving for to deny this belongs to the heresy of the Ebionites and ..
"Now, earlier did you indeed maintain that the Beatitudes are solely for the Apostles' consumption, or did you misspeak?"
That's not what I said. What I did say was, "In Matthew 5-7, Jesus is talking to His disciples. He has already told them a couple of times that "the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". Now He is telling them what is their inheritance in the Kingdom and the rewards that await them. There are unbelievers in the multitudes that are auditors who will learn what the blessings of the Kingdom are, but this is not a prescription for entrance into the blessing, but a description of the blessings of the believers now. Verses 5:3 and 5:10 say "for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven". Is, is in the present indicative, a present possession. The two verses form a stylistic device called an "inclusion". That means that everything bracketed between 5:3 and 5:10 is included under the one theme "for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven".
The message in Matthew 25 was given, again, to the disciples (Matt. 24:1) "And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple." In the teaching Jesus calls the "elect" (Matt. 24:31) "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." "blessed" (Matt. 25:34) "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:". Now notice there is no mention of works salvation, in fact, Jesus says the elect's, blessed's place had been prepared for them before the foundation of the world. Now the evidence that it is not a works salvation is the question the blessed asks, "when did we do...". the good works they do are the fruit of the new nature in Christ Jesus not the cause of it. It is something they naturally do because of the grace given to them in Christ Jesus. If it was a works based salvation the statement of the blessed would be "look what we did...".
Paul echoes this message in Ephesians 2:7-10, "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works, not because of good works or along with good works. Our salvation, our blessedness, is by grace through faith; a gift of god, not works or with works.
"You anathematized the Catholic church"
LOL!!!!! One of our Patriarchs did that to their pope over 1000 years ago. But we kissed and made up back in the 1960s! But you know, if the Latin Church really believed that she was the Christotokos instead of the Theotokos, as you seem to maintain, then they'd be Nestorian heretics too...but they don't, didn't and aren't.
I'm off to bed to read The Spiritual Meadow (for at least the 5th time) by +John Moschos. I heartily recommend it to all.
Oh. I see. Even the anathema must be qualified. Okay. Whatever.
I know my beliefs are not Nestorian and you're right, the declared anathema doesn't bother me. Christ Jesus is my Lord, not a council. My conscience is clear before Him.
That's one for the archives. Nicely done.
I see that the question of Christ's genetics has again come up downthread.
The words "made like us in all things, excepting sin" in one of the prayers in the Divine Liturgy for Theophany, struck me as relevant to our discussions. Just as the Fathers, doubtless had in mind the noetic intelligences as the 'invisible', when they included "maker of all things visible and invisible" in the Creed, but wisely did not say 'material and noetic', but 'visible and invisible', thereby affirming for us in these latter days that the Father made quarks, gamma rays, the curvature of space-time, and a host of other invisible things that are not part of the noetic realm, so I would not discount the Church's perceptiveness in praying down the centuries "made like us in all things, excepting sin" to assert that Christ's body (or Adam and Eve's bodies) did not include instructions encoded in DNA--not inherited in an ordinary conception, but there, nonethless--describing the enzymes by which Christ in His humanity digested ordinary earthly food, describing the proteins of the muscles which carried the Cross, the nerves that bore the material portion of His agony in His Passion and Saving Death, and the like. To assert otherwise is either to deny the doctrine contained in the prayers of the Church, or to assert that having bodies with instructions encoded in DNA is somehow in itself sin, a very strange position, indeed.
I agree that there is no point in speculating as to the material means of the Virgin's conception, though these seem to me closer to human comprehension than the far deeper mystery of the Hypostatic Union.
"There is no such thing as "carnal mind."
Romans 8:7, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."
Both you and Luther, in your reading of the Holy Apostle Paul, miss the import of the phrase "of the law" qualifying works.
The entire matter becomes clear when Our Lord's own teachings are included in consideration of the false dischotomy between the Apostle Paul and James:
Consider first Christ's reply to the rich young ruler--he commends him for keeping the law, but tells him if he would be perfect (and being perfect as Our Father in heaven is perfect is one of Christ's commands), he should go, sell all that he has and give to the poor, and follow Him. Christ does not say, "believe in me" or "have faith", but gives him concrete actions "works" to perform. But, they are not "works of the law", as the young ruler has already done those, 'from his youth upward'.
Next, consider Christ's description of the Last Judgement. ". . .in as much as ye did it to least of these, ye did it unto Me. . .in as much as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to Me. . ." Here, those saved and those condemned are separated not by their faith, but by their works.
St. James' point is that there are works which proceed from, and are the signs of living faith--principally following Christ's commandments. Abraham's faith was not an assent to doctrine, a mere belief, but a trust in God which prompted him to lead Isaac out into the wilderness with the intent of offering him as a blood sacrifice because he trusted God's word--again an action, a work, but not a 'work of the law'. So too, those described as receiving a reward in the Last Judgement are not rewarded for keeping the Law of Moses, but for clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the prisoners, again works, but not 'works of the law'.
Amen. Christ Himself could not have spoken had He worrried His words would not be misused/misunderstood
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