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In All Things

'You will bear a child ...'

Austen IvereighDecember 24, 2010

 

Here in the UK we have been treated to a wonderful four-part dramatization of the Nativity, broadcast on BBC TV in prime time each evening this week. The Nativity is writtten by Tony Jordan, who is something like royalty in the world of soap scriptwriting. It is co-produced by the BBC and CBC (Canadian) and I hope very much that it reaches the US somehow.

Jordan, interviewed last Sunday, said he was an agnostic until he started working on the script. Three years of research, writing and filming later, he now believes that the story of the Nativity is true.

For excellent reviews, see the Jesuit e-journal Thinking Faith's reviews of each episode here, here, here and here. As the last one says, the Nativity is a gift of imaginative contemplation.

Here is the scene where the angel Gabriel appears to Mary, played beautifully by Tatiana Maslany. Happy Christmas.

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13 years 4 months ago
Merry Christmas Mr. Ivereigh - great job on here and with Catholic Voices in the UK.

Here is the American literary voice for the nativity:

From Flannery O’Connor’s “The Violent Bear It Away”:
God told the world he was going to send it a king and the world waited. The world thought, a golden fleece will do for His bed. Silver and gold and peacock tails, a thousand suns in a peacock’s tail will do for his crib. His mother will ride on a four-horned white beast and use the sunset for a cape. She’ll trail it behind her over the ground and let the world pull it to pieces, a new one every evening.
Jesus came on cold straw, Jesus was warmed by the breath of an ox. “Who is this?” the world said. “Who is this blue-cold child and this woman, plain as the winter? Is this the Word of God, this blue-cold child? Is this His will, this plain winter-woman?” The world said, “Love cuts like the cold wind and the will of God is plain as the winter.”

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