HELL BURNS OFFICIAL

  (originally published in CatholicRegister.org ) The first haiku I ever wrote was about home. I was in sixth grade French class staring out the window as usual (zut alors!), and it came to me wholly formed, in a flash of insight. Oh, how I do think of how lovely life would be if I could go home. Lest you are thinking I went to a boarding school, I did not. The content and sentiment of the haiku startled even moi - même , because I knew it didn’t mean my home right down the street. The poem was surely a grace from God, whispering to me that I had another home, my real home for which I was longing. It was my first inkling of heaven. “Home” has been much more than a concept during the 2020 pandemic filled with lockdowns, shutdowns and restricted activities. People got reacquainted, very reacquainted with their living spaces, such as they are, and with their families and roommates, such as they are. My friend--who was paying off her dream condo on Yonge St.--became quite literally a...

“30 MINTUES B.C.--A NATIVITY PLAY” GKChestertonEntertainment.org Review by Sr. Helena Raphael Burns, fsp TRAILER:   https://vimeo.com/488746762 The forty-three minute filmed play, written and directed by Denise Vi Flaten is an imaginative, lovely drama of Joseph and Mary just thirty minutes before the Savior is born. The narrator is none other than Jonathan Roumie (Jesus in “The Chosen”)—however, the narration is more like a few brief, mostly unnecessary stage directions. Even if it was supposed to be a fun little device, it doesn’t really work, is disruptive and takes us out of contemplating the scene before us. Thankfully it isn’t often! There is one super-ugly and jarring line (is it a joke?) right after Jesus’ birth. Joseph quotes Isaiah, and Mary blurts out the exact chapter and verse. What is this, Bible Trivia? But these are minor flaws. The setting is a stage populated with hay bales and a manger. The loquacious couple “defer to one another out of reverence for Christ”: ...