Our Lady of the 'Tude

Many are talking about the new movie, The Nativity, which is Hollywood's latest religious offering, which seems to be a mix of religious seriousness and spotty theology. I have not seen the film and recent reviews would indicate that is not worth the time and money, although the sincerity of the effort should be commended.

For our purposes, the approach to the Blessed Mother can be discussed without having seen it, for it calls to mind fundamental teachings about Mary, the Church, and the nature of Revelation. One reviewer whose piece is making the rounds of blogdom is Father Angelo Mary Geiger, who states the following:

Following the premier of the film at the Vatican on Sunday, heated discussions about the “painlessness” of the Virgin Birth immediately erupted. However, many of the comments in the blogosphere miss the point entirely. The essential truth of the Virgin Birth, as taught continually by the Fathers and defined by the Church, does not concern the presence or absence of pain during Jesus’ birth. The central truth of the Virgin Birth is that Christ was born of Mary miraculously, as a sign and confirmation of His divinity. The Virgin Birth has always been distinguished from the Virginal Conception, because it was a separate and distinct miraculous event. It was not a natural birth, nor is it explainable by natural causes. Our Lady’s physical virginity, with all that it implies, remained integral and intact before, during and after the birth of Jesus. St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure and the Catechism of the Council of Trent all teach the painlessness of the birth as a logical consequence of its miraculous nature.

The Virgin Birth is an essential part of the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity, and in addition to its value as a sign of Christ’s divinity, its miraculous nature just further underscores Our Lady’s unique, grace-filled and exalted place in God’s plan. It inspires us to praise Her, admire Her and love Her for Her glorious Virginal Maternity. And while one might expect a Protestant filmmaker to get this wrong, it at least opens up the discussion which can help correct a real doctrinal error believed by many Catholics.

Whereas some might think such details are unimportant, even obstacles to ecumenism, the above-mentioned theologians taught otherwise. Getting Mary "right" is essential to getting ecclesiology "right," and from that flows a proper understanding of Christ. Christians who have separated themselves from Rome often took a club to Mary -- seeing the honour of her as dangerous, distracting, and divisive. Well, yes, it is now divisive, but in a prudential and telling way.

Father is rightly concerned about:

• Mary's attitude of obstinancy and disobedience to her parents' wishes;
• Mary's calculating conversations that imply deviousness;
• Mary's petulant and dramatic self-image;
• Mary's complete disregard for her [traditionally known] consecrated state.

Most of her confusion would be fine for an ordinary teenager, but Catholics know that that is not the case.

Mary in The Nativity lacks depth and stature, and becomes the subject of a treatment on teenage psychology. According to Godfrey, Hardwicke was chosen to direct because “[s]he has had great success at really capturing the lives of young people in particular, and the conflict, crisis, and pain of growing up.” In fact, Hardwicke co-wrote and directed Thirteen, a hard-edged, R-rated story about teen rebellion. Unfortunately, the Mary of The Nativity seems to have been spattered with the same brush that Hardwicke used for the earlier film.

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. That's very personal and startling, and you can imagine how that would make a person feel.

If we've learned anything in the last forty years, we know the deadly dangers of stooping to the levels of adolescents for the sake of "taking them seriously." Religious education, homilies, puerile television shows, and Hollywood tripe have cemented that fact that this approach doesn't engage the teenager in order to point him to maturity as much as it engulfs him in a narcissism which affirms that he is indeed the centre of the universe.

So here we have the Queen of Angels and the Mother of the Redeemer sulking and plotting for her happiness -- which will reinforce kid's confusion about what virtue is and why we are here.

For our part, this Advent especially, we should take this as an invitation to meditate on humility (being the creatures of so magnificent a God), patience (letting His plan unfold in His time), docility (letting His plan unfold in His way), and purity (the invitation to bear Christ in our souls and the requisite disengagement from anything that would sully us as tabernacles). Spending time sorting through why the Church clings to the truth about Mary will allow us to explain it when the opportunity arises. And it will.

Comments

[elena maria vidal]

I totally agree with Father Angelo. Great explanation! It is a movie I will skip!

[Amy]

I saw the movie this weekend and I agree with Father. There were good things about the movie, but ultimately it was very watered down and disappointing.

[Terentia]

The same things bothered me about the presentation of Mary. By the end of the movie, tho, her demeanor and attitude had turned around and seemed somewhat more in line with the traditional view of Mary. Filmakers are obsessed with showing "growth" in their characters. This is why Peter Jackson changed the character of Faramir in Lord of the Rings (according to Jackson). I think, it is also the reason the Magnificat was moved to the end of the movie instead of being included in the depiction of the Visitation. As a Catholic, there were other things I could quibble about but on the whole, it was an attractive movie and I have found that the non-Catholics and non-believers whom I took to see it, also found the movie and as a result, the real story, attractive. And isn't that what we want - to attract others to our Lord and Lady?

[leticia]

there were other things I could quibble about but on the whole, it was an attractive movie
I agree. I have seen it twice, and agree that this is largely a Protestant version of Mary, not sinless, rather typical until she is touched by grace later in the movie. It seems odd, that this should be true, considering that two of the director's religion advisors were Catholic clergy.
Anyway, it was inspriting, particularly the portrayal (finally) of the manly yet gentle St Joseph, and the exuberant, and motherly St. Elizabeth.I enjoyed the Christmas carols interwoven into the sweeping score, the impressive special effects (Jesus was literally born into the light of the Star of Bethlehem). And, finally, I liked the juxtaposition of the evil Herod the Great, and his son Antipas, and the innocence of Mary and Joseph as a prefigurement of the crucifixion.