Every Christmas I try to show that the Fathers and Doctors of the Church unanimously teach that Mary was without pain on that first Christmas (see post: “Mary’s Painless Delivery of Christ”). The reason for this is plain – Mary was without original sin and thus she did not experience the curse of Eve in painful childbirth. Mary is the New Eve and stands higher than Eve. It also inconceivable that the Christ would cause physical harm to his mother. Moreover, the Church Fathers cite Isaiah 66:7 as referring to Mary’s painless delivery of Christ:

“Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child” (Isa 66:7)

This year, I want to focus on something different. I recently listened to this sermon in which the priest demonstrated that the Nativity Story movie is both blasphemous and sacrilegious. The priest notes the following:

The Nativity Story film depicts Mary as experiencing pain in child birth and therefore depicts her as subject to original sin. In other words, the Mary of the Nativity Story is not the immaculately conceived Mary of Scripture, Tradition, and the Catholic Church. This is serious business when we recall what Pope Pius IX solemnly proclaimed:

But that’s not the worst part. The Nativity Story depicts the Blessed Virgin consenting to have her palm read by a medium or witch. This is a capital crime in the Old Testament law of Moses and anyone who engaged in divination (e.g. palm reading) received the death penalty by God’s command. A good rule of thumb is that if a sin received the death penalty in the Old Testament then the same sin constitutes a mortal sin in the New Testament (when full consent and knowledge is present). The death penalty of the Old Law reveals the spiritual death that the soul receives through mortal sin – mortal sin meaning “deadly sin.”

So would Mary have committed a mortal sin and allowed a medium to divine her palm? Absolutely not! If she had, she would have consented to Satan and she would no longer have held enmity with the infernal serpent as Scripture inerrantly teaches:

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel (Gen 3:15).

So The Nativity Story explicitly depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary as 1) subject to original sin; and 2) committing a mortal sin of divination. This is the height of blasphemy and Satan grins as thousands of well-meaning Christians watch this film in preparation for the holidays.

I wouldn’t watch a movie in which my mother was slandered and depicted committing mortal sins. Why should we watch a film that depicts the Immaculate Mother of Christ in submission to Satan

Just say no to The Nativity Story.

In order to add a positive twist, please suggest some solid and helpful “Christmas movie” suggestions in the comments below.

ad Jesum per Mariam,
Taylor Marshall

PS: I just added a new post in defense of the painless and intact nativity of Christ:

“Mary’s Painless Delivery of Christ” from Scripture, Church Fathers, Popes, and Doctors of the Church