A Freeper Review of The Passion of Christ

Vanity | 2/21/04 | John Fields

[Ohioan from Florida]

Yes!

[BigSkyFreeper]

It's just like when my dad calls on the phone and says "Son, I can't seem to get this newfangled thing to work on my computer, can you come over and help me?" and I say "sure, I'll be right over". Just like the Trinity, what the Father is unable to accomplish, the Son can, and what the Son may not be able to accomplish, the Holy Ghost or the Father might be able to accomplish. Doesn't mean one is superior or inferior over the other. They all work in symphony with one another.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

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'MEL GIBSON - America's new JOHN WAYNE under attack'


http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=604

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[savedbygrace]

Once again, you misunderstand. Jesus gave that to us as a pattern. I pray to God, the Father, in the name of Jesus.

[NobleEagle2004]

To All who are both nervous and apprehensive (including myself) The Least we can all do is Grin & Bear it,and show our faith and go see it.

[Leonine]

Mary was "assumed" to be worthy of direct entry into heaven, not needing a hand up, so to speak. You may consult your U.S. catechism, but it is ambiguous. Better would be to consult the Vatican website. The St. Joseph's Missal is also useful.

[Paradox]

Thanks for the review, the movie sounds almost impossibly powerful. I hope to see it ASAP, and will try to give a review from an athiest point of view, if that is possible. I consider myself something of an agnostic-deist (no flames please, I have nothing but respect for devout Christians, and Jews, and am an all around pretty decent guy), but I was raised a "light" Catholic, so I am sure this is going to stir up some feelings for me.

[savedbygrace]

Timothy and the other believers were still alive on the earth. That's a crucial distinction. You're praying to those who have died. Yes, they are alive forever in heaven, but they died, and they are not God.

[beckett]

Let the review stand, please. The Mary remark is not anti-Catholic, he gave both sides. Maybe we should start another thread.

With all due respect, he did not give both sides. He stated that Catholics think of Mary as "divine." The divinity is now and always has been reserved for the Trinity in Catholicism, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mary is not divine for Catholics. When Catholics pray to her they are praying to an intercessor between Jesus Christ and the prayerful, not to a divinity. There are some extreme Marians who have lobbied the current Pope to name her "co-redemptrix," but the Magisterium so far has rebuffed them, and I do not believe they will ever succeed in assigning her that status. But even if they did succeed, she still would not become "divine." It's simply an error to say otherwise.

[savedbygrace]

But once again you avoided answering the question. What's your scriptural reference for praying to saints, those who have died in Christ?

If you're just going to talk around this and not answer, it will be easy to conclude you have none.

[Ohioan from Florida]

Every time we sin, we spit, we mock, we lash.

It's weird, isn't it? When I think about it, I feel awful, and then I forget, and sin again! I'm thankful that St. Paul understood how I feel. See Romans 7:15 "What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate." and Romans 7:19 "For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want." and Romans 7:24-25 "Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin."

[savedbygrace]

BTW, I already have tickets for the Wednesday afternoon and Saturday afternoon showings. I'm looking forward to this film.

[Leonine]

I'm going to see the movie. If the suffering is in my visual memory, then maybe I can sin just a little bit less. Thank you for those sympathetic words from Paul's cathedral of an Epistle.

[Cicero]

Well, very briefly, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception states that Mary was conceived without sin, as you say. It was quite an early belief in the Church.

It is not beyond God's ability to do something like that. He gave Abraham and Sarah a son when they were much to old for childbearing or even sexual relations. Eve, too, was originally created sinless, and then fell.

For the other, I don't think you mean the Annunciation (the Archangel Gabriel's appearance to Mary when she consented to bear Jesus) but the Assumption. The Assumption was declared a dogma quite recently (Vatican I), but it was also a very early belief in the Church. I remember reading in the annals of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany in the early middle ages that one of the monks visited the Holy Land and was told about it there. As further evidence, there are no accounts of places where Mary's tomb might be, but there are accounts of Jesus's tomb and the tombs of many early Christians. That absence isn't proof but it's an interesting indication.

At any rate, the Assumption declares that Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven. The same things seems to be said in Genesis about Enoch, and there is a long tradition to that effect. Again, it doesn't say that Mary is divine. Only that God made a special exception in her case and raised her before the General Resurrection at the end of days.

[Libloather]

...it's going to be a profoundly disturbing portrayal of the brutality that Jesus suffered. I think one of the worst things that could happen to this film would be for Christians to unthinkingly flock to it simply to "show their support" and then wind up fleeing the theater and criticizing the film as being "too violent."

A beating prior to crucifixion can only be exceptionally nasty. Today's sterile environment of death penalty needles can't even come close...

[Leonine]

Good post, but remember that Abraham did have a child by Keturah in his mid-80s. His name was Ishmael.

[CyberAnt]

It was a plan. Satan didn't know what the plan was .. only God knew. If Satan had known the plan, he would never have crucified Jesus, and we could not have been restored to God.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

As a FReeper I find that a great compliment which I am happy to return!

[Cicero]

I see that as an opportunity for education and discussion, not for pulling the thread. And by education I mean telling Protestants what Catholics believe, rather than what they have been told Catholics believe. It's not probably going to change their own beliefs, but it's still a small step in bringing people a little closer together.