TV and Movies

[Carmie]

The Ave Maria song is very beautiful, most agree.  The lyrics are a prayer said When praying the Rosary and often during other services, such as weddings and funerals.

It is a religious prayer, not just a song.

Would it be approperiate to use a sung prayer for Jewish services, or Muslim services or Hindu services for commercial purposes?  Amazon is selling headphones, drums and hair gel by using a religious prayer. It doesn't matter what religion is it, it is just plain wrong.

If the song was used for a commercial to sell the artist who sings Ave Maria CD, that would be appropriate.    

There is a lot of talk about this out there. Commercials have been removed for slighting a group of people before and this one should be removed as well.  What Amazon is doing is not okay.

[Anonymous032819]

Ave Maria is a beautiful song that both the religious and non-religious alike can enjoy.

I am not a Catholic, and do not find the commercial to be offensive in the slightest.

It's about a man, who is listening to his favorite music, while there is chaos around him.

Not everything has to be taken so gosh darn seriously.

[Veridoc]

I love that commercial and the song. When it comes on I close my eyes and can feel a sense of calmness and peace. It's not long enough for me. It may not be appropriate for a commercial but I am so glad it gets airtime and people are talking about it. Not so much what they are advertising but the song in general. By the way, I am not catholic.

[corita]

      No matter when or where I hear this song, it is one of a  few select songs that actually bring me to tears.  Many memories associated to it, as well as just the beauty of the melody!! The commercial doesn't bother me, but it is shown too often!!

[RoughDraft]

The message to me is that despite all the "noise" in a regular commercial to get their point across, can be done away with by using something beautiful to listen to and peace invoking.

Other advertisers might be wise to do something similar.

[cherry]

(JUst want to say with all of the stuft that troubles me, this doesn't even make a blip on my radar screen)

snip

Who knows whether someone, hearing the Ave on an Amazon commercial, is moved to seek out additional prayerful music that eventually inspires something more? Who knows if some lapsed Catholic heard that commercial and was thrown into a memory of religious beauty and was moved to attend Mass that weekend (possibly initiating a full-on return to the sacraments)?

We do not know all the ways the Holy Spirit can use the Amazon ad to serve God’s own purposes. But rather than clucking about it in vain, we can pray that something wonderful happens—in the lives of many—because a beautiful prayer was unleashed into a distracted, overbusy, increasingly secularist world.

We should not unintentionally suggest that our God too small, too weak, to handle what human beings can devise. We shouldn’t, even with the best of intentions, permit the world to ever, ever perceive of Mary of Nazareth as anything but strong, resolute, and accessible. And we should never, no matter how much we think we’re doing the right thing, insult the Holy Spirit by acting like any event is beyond the Spirit’s use for the purposes of God’s plan for our salvation, collectively and individually.

Really, Amazon has just told the world that the one who quickly acted to removed himself from the busy, Marthaesque world and settled into a beautiful prayer has, like Mary, made “the better choice” (Luke 10:42).

How in the world could Catholics ever argue against that?

About the Author

Elizabeth Scalia

Elizabeth Scalia is a Benedictine Oblate and author of several books in

[Veridoc]

@cherry: I was going to just give you a heart, but wanted to tell you I think you wrote a very beautiful and thoughtful post.

[ChazzyLady]

FWIW, I love that commercial and, even though Amazon like every other retailer is trying to sell us stuff, I always smile and get feelings of peace and joy when it's aired. Beautiful song sung by a woman with an amazing voice. Also love the expression on the man's face as he's enjoying drowning out all the noise with something joyful and peaceful.

OTH, if I could, I would ban all of the commercials featuring obnoxious, disrespectful, bratty kids being rewarded/bribed with EXACTLY the food they want to eat and not what the rest of the family is eating (Kraft Mac and Cheese, Oreida French fries, etc.) to appease them. Blecch! If I tried that nonsense at the dinner table with my mom, well, I knew better than to even try that, LOL! 😁

To everyone here, I hope you find Peace, Joy and Love any way you can every day.

[jellyBEAN]

This commercial makes absolutely no sense to me other than Amazon selling all these things such as drum sets and noise cancelling headphones. 

So Ave Maria is playing in the background and we are flashed a couple of kids who appear to be bashing their instruments to what I assume is rock music and then ending w/the dad wearing the noise cancelling headphones.  So I get he may not wanna hear kids bashing on instruments to rock music - thus the noise cancelling headphones, but why is Ave Maria playing in the background?  Apparently he doesn't want to hear that either, unless Ave Maria is playing thru the headphones so that he can't hear the kids bashing about.  But why would they be advertised as noise cancelling?

I think the people writing some of these commercials are smoking too much in the back room and then creating a lot of nonsense.

[Lattelvr]

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@spiderw wrote:

Ave Maria is a beautiful song, it always affects me.  I have to been to numerous funeral masses where this song has been sung and it always brings the tears. As a result of my experience hearing this song, I find it inappropriate in a commercial and think it disrespectful.  This is just my opinion and my frame of reference for this song.

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I agree.  I find no correlation whatsoever by using this song in this commercial and it is disrespectful.  I actuallychange the channel when it comes on.