Fox Nation’s Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints is releasing a special extended episode focused on Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, on Friday.
The series is produced and narrated by filmmaking icon Martin Scorsese and is in its second season. The newest episode covers the life of Mary, from her marriage to Joseph to the death of her son on Good Friday.
Other key biblical events brought to life in the episode include Mary giving birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, Jesus turning water into wine, and the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.
Scorsese recalls growing up in Little Italy in New York during the 1940s, where Easter was seen as “the most sacred holiday of the year.” He said the story of Jesus and His life is “intertwined with the life of His mother,” who was “chosen by God.”
“In the Christian faith, Mary is a pillar, a perfect soul who steps into her beloved son’s shadow,” Scorsese said toward the end of the episode. “When you examine her life closely, you start to see her terror, her astonishment, her confusion, her sorrow, her great love. It’s a life unlike any other, so we made this episode in an attempt to get closer to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and really, for so many of us all around the world, the mother of us all.”
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Like the other episodes in the series, this episode ends with a roundtable discussion among Catholic priest Father James Martin and writers Mary Karr and Paul Elie. Martin said some people find Mary “in a sense, more approachable” compared to Jesus, but added that “she’s pointing, always, to her son.”
The episode includes a scene where Jesus appears to His mother after His resurrection, an interaction not documented in the Bible. Scorsese asked how much “dramatic license” could be taken with these stories, to which Martin said Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a saint from the 1500s, once said, “it may be piously believed” that Jesus appeared to Mary after His resurrection.
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The episode on Mary debuts at 5 a.m. Friday, two days before Palm Sunday and a week before Good Friday.
Fox Nation also debuted the dramatization of King David last month in David: King of Israel. The four-part miniseries covered David’s rise from a shepherd boy under his father to becoming the king of Israel.
