Ellen Gable's Blog, page 107

Family Life Humor

Cartoon copyright 2012 James and Ellen Hrkach/Full Quiver Publishing

Sunday Snippets – April 15

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at RAnn’s Place for Sunday Snippets where we share posts from the previous week.

Here are my posts:

Marketing Your Self-Published Book My latest post at the Catholic Writers Guild Blog.

7 Quick Takes Friday – Wow Moments

Photo and text copyright Ellen Gable Hrkach

7 Quick Takes Friday – Wow Moments

Join me and other Catholic Bloggers at Conversion Diary for 7 Quick Takes Friday.

My post today is entitled “Wow Moments.”

1. Although it’s been five years since my mom’s passing, I recently discovered her special box: Click here to read the entire post about my mom’s special box.

2. This photo shows my oldest son holding his youngest brother a week or so after his birth. My youngest son is now the age of my oldest son in this photograph.

3. This was one of those “Wow moments” that caused me to age about ten years. My middle son (below, on bottom) had a job working at the local parachuting club and one of the perks was free skydiving. I prayed a lot and gained more than a few gray hairs in those 20 minutes or so. I later wrote an article about the experience and it was the featured article in Family Foundations magazine.

4. No matter how many times I see St. Joseph’s Oratory, I still say “Wow.” My second oldest son attends Concordia University near this beautiful church in Montreal. Set on a hilltop, it can be seen from virtually any part of the city.

5. It was sad when my stepdad passed away a few months ago. We will all miss his gentle and quiet humor. Just before the funeral, my siblings and I were surprised to find out that my sister’s entire novice class would be attending the funeral. (My sister is a novice with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville). Dressed in white and exuding an infectious enthusiasm for the faith, these beautiful young women made quite an impression. This is a photo from the funeral reception.

6. Now that some of my sons are living away from home, I always feel like it’s a “wow” moment when we’re all together (and that happened recently on my husband’s birthday).

7. Our wedding day, 30 years ago, was the happiest day of my life.

For more “Quick Takes,” visit Conversion Diary.

Next week: More Wow Moments

Photos copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach and Josh Hrkach

Text copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship FREE Today and Tomorrow

My third book, Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship is FREE today and tomorrow on Amazon Kindle. I was happy to work with Kathy Cassanto in editing this wonderful book of true love stories.

Below are just a few of the many positive reviews this book has received:

"This truly beautiful collection of Catholic courtship stories is a must-read for anyone discerning a vocation, especially the call to marriage; and for those courting, engaged, already married or widowed. Highly recommend!" Lisa Mladinich, author "Be An Amazing Catechist," founder, AmazingCatechists.com

"...whether you're courting, engaged, newlyweds or celebrating your jubilee years together, this terrific resource offers something for anyone looking to grow closer to God and to one another."

Lisa M. Hendey, author "A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms," founder, CatholicMom.com

To read more reviews and watch a book trailer, here is the book's website:

Come My Beloved website

Marketing Your Self-Published Book

My recent post at the Catholic Writers Guild Blog talks about marketing the self-published book:

After years of creating, editing, polishing and many revisions, the last line of your book is written. You have sent it off to the printer. You are finally finished! Now you can sit back, kick up your feet and relax while your book becomes a bestseller.

Wrong.

For the self-published author, the writing of his or her book only comprises 10% of the work. In my experience, 90% has been promotion and marketing.

I've put together some pointers that might help the novice self-published author. These are things that I have learned from ten years experience as a self-published author, things that will help you to market your book.

One: Produce a quality book There is no substitute for a quality book. Don't take short cuts! Hire a professional editor and cover designer. Hire a book coach…please produce a quality book. If you publish a poor quality or mediocre book, no amount of marketing is going to help it sell.

Two: Create a website for your book, along with a book trailer. Here is my second novel's website and book trailer:

Three: Attend local Catholic conferences Since I was writing Catholic fiction, the first thing I did as a new author many years ago was to attend a local Catholic conference. I sold 22 books at that conference. I use the word "local" because obviously there will be expenses for attending out-of-town conferences and an author must weigh the cost of attending to the possible income to be made.

Four: Ask friends, relatives and anyone who is willing to write a review of your book. This has been helpful, although friends and relatives can sometimes go overboard writing gushing reviews.

Five: Social networking/Web Presence Ten years ago, the only social networking sites available were blogs. I didn't have time to start writing a blog, but I did join Facebook way back in 2006 in order to keep any eye on my teenagers. As my friend list grew, it turned out to be a wonderful marketing and promotion tool. Join Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Linked in, Google plus. (BTW, feel free to follow me on any of these sites and I will follow you back!) Make a Facebook page for your book.

Social networking takes time, but these websites can be a tremendous help in promoting your book. Once my boys grew a bit older, I began writing a blog. I also write columns for four different websites and I try to comment frequently on other blogs.

Six: Enter your book in book award contests A major award has the potential of selling books. I entered my first book, Emily's Hope, in the 2006 IPPY Awards. Although I didn't walk away with a medal, they sent me an "Honorable Mention" certificate and a few stickers. When I entered my second book,, in the 2010 IPPY Awards, I had no aspirations of winning anything. When I found out I was a finalist, I automatically assumed I would receive a Bronze medal. Later, I was shocked to discover my book had won the Gold Medal!

Although it doesn't claim to be all-inclusive, this link contains a list of self-publishing contests to enter: http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/blog/2009/01/self-published-book-contests/ Be aware that most of these require an entry fee.

Seven: Release your book as an e-book at a reasonable price (more on e-book pricing in a future post). I wrote about Kindle books in a post last year on this blog.

Putting my books on Kindle has been the single most important marketing device for me. To illustrate this, let me state that in the first six years of my writing career, I sold a total of about 2000 print books, and these sales were mostly from conferences I attended. Last year alone, I sold 5000 e-books and 500 print books (not too bad for a relatively unknown author). In the last six months, over 60,000 people have downloaded my books. Some of these were free promotional downloads, but after the free promotions were over, I saw a spike in sales for all three of my novels (5,000 books SOLD in nearly two weeks). All three of my novels have been in the top ten of Religious and Liturgical Drama for three months, and most of the time, they are in the top four.

Because a self-published author doesn't have a publisher to help them market, we should add "marketing" to the long list of things we must do ourselves.

You may have just written a literary masterpiece. But if you don't promote it, it will be destined for oblivion.

Copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Image purchased from iStock.

Sunday Snippets – Easter Sunday

Alleluia! He is Risen! Happy Easter, Everyone!

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at RAnn's Place for Sunday Snippets where we share posts from the previous week.

This past week, my posts have focused on the immorality of contraception. I did this purposefully.

It was six years ago that a young, famous Protestant couple renounced their moral position on Natural Family Planning. Before this, they had been enthusiastic promoters of NFP, even writing a book called "Open Embrace." In 2006, they issued an open letter stating that NFP and abstinence were harmful to their marriage. It is no coincidence that they issued this letter during Holy Week. In my experience, Satan increases his attacks during this time. Tragically, this couple is now divorced. Both are now attending liberal churches and both think that contraception is "okay." Contraception is NOT okay. It is a serious sin and harms marriages.

Here are my posts:

The Spiritual Consequences of Sterilization : My latest post at Amazing Catechists

Lessons in the Journey Book Review : Leave a comment at this post to be entered to win a free Kindle copy.

The Spiritual Malaise Behind Contraception: (Guest Post by Barb Schoeneberger)

Changing Hearts on Contraception: (Guest Post by Barb Schoeneberger)

The Power of the Rosary encourages all people to pray the rosary on Good Friday.

Copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach

The Power of the Rosary

I received the following email from several friends and wanted to pass it along to readers of my blog:

Imagine what might happen if every Catholic in the world would pray a Rosary on the same day! We have an example in October of 1573, when Europe was saved from the invasion of the mighty Turkish fleet, by the praying of the Rosary by all Christians!

On Good Friday, April 6th 2012, let us all pray a Rosary for peace in the world and the return of moral values into our communities. If possible, please pray your Rosary between Noon and 3:00 pm.

Let's unite in praying one of the most powerful prayers in existence, for these intentions, on one of the holiest days in our Church year.

If you're not familiar with how to recite the rosary, here is a helpful link: http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/rosary/how_to.htm

Photo purchased on iStock

Changing Hearts on Contraception – Guest Post

Special thanks again to Barb Schoeneberger for allowing me to reprint her beautifully written post from last week entitled "Changing Hearts on Contraception."

Yesterday I opened the subject of The Spiritual Malaise Behind Contraception. Sandro Magister called the dichotomy between Church teaching and behavior of observant Catholics proof of "the relentless advance of secularization." We have always been told that temptations come from the world, the flesh and the devil. In the case of contraception all three are at work, but the enormous pressure from the world (secularization) can't be withstood by Catholics who have either lost or never had that profound connection with devout spiritual practices that gave us so many saints throughout the centuries.

Signs of estrangement

Language is powerful. The words we use say a lot about us and where we are in our relationship with God. Let's take a look at some typical statements I've seen on the internet from Catholics regarding contraception to illustrate what I mean:

I don't want the Church telling me what to do.

The Catholic Church is wrong and should get with the times.

I'll quit contracepting when the Pope pays for my children's education.

The bishop should stay out of my bedroom.

Now, for every italicized word, substitute the word "God." A tenet of the Catholic Faith is that Sacred Scripture is truth, the Word of God, and Catholic Tradition which finds its roots in Sacred Scripture comes from God. When the Pope and the bishops in union with him teach the truth God revealed, they speak with the authority of God. So people are really saying, "I don't want God telling me what to do; God is wrong and should get with the times; I'll quit contracepting when God pays for my children's education; God should stay out of my bedroom."

As to the third statement, it is a fact that everything, including money, belongs to God who dispenses it through whatever means He sees fit, so God indeed provides for children's education and all else that parents may need. For the rest, very, very scary is the spirit of the world. It wants NO relationship with God. These statements are indicative of the spiritual blindness afflicting us.

The role of the Capital Sins

If I had to pick among the Seven Capital Sins that facilitate our fascination with the world to the point that we contracept, they would be:

Greed

Lust

Pride

Greed makes us willing to trade children for status and things. It makes us decide that a certain standard of living is more important that accepting what God wants us to have. It drives us to "keep up with the Joneses." It's behind us "needing" to have the latest electronic gadget, entertainment center, dinner at the most upscale restaurant around, a lot of fine jewelry, etc.

The politics of scarcity feeds greed to the point that the United Nations and the U.S. government are trying to force birth control on as many nations as possible. The Malthusians have already been proven wrong, yet nations still try to bully other lesser powers into stunting their population growth, the greater powers eying the natural resources lesser powers have. Greed seeks to deny nations their greatest natural resource, their children.

Lust turns others into objects to be used for our pleasure with no responsibility or respect for the dignity of the person. What is more demeaning to the person than to become an object for someone else's pleasure?

Pride hides behind the quotes above, and behind lust, placing our opinions and ideas above anyone else's, especially God's. Pride cares about what others think, not about what God thinks. And if we don't care what God thinks, then what kind of relationship do we have with Him in the first place?

These sins are in service to secularization. The more we give in to them the blinder we become. We slowly forget God. We arrive at the point where we believe all that we have and accomplish are through our own intelligence and talent. We are just plain full of ourselves with no room for God.

The antidote to secularization

In recent weeks a number of priests have either written or commented on how hard it is to speak on the subject of contraception. They want to teach the truth and have a genuine fear of turning people off or incurring the wrath of the harpies in the parish. If I may be so bold, I offer to them my insight: Church teaching on contraception will fail to ignite the hearts of the faithful unless it becomes part of the whole of developing the virtues of humility and trust in God. This is our starting point and goes for overcoming addiction to any mortal sin. Unless we get to this most basic level of relationship with God, we can forget about getting people to accept anything except what they want to – the "cafeteria Catholic."

Humility and trust in God are nothing more than pretty and useless words, though, without sound spiritual practice. What can we do beyond what the Church requires (the precepts of the Church) to develop humility and trust in God? I'll offer a couple of things here that have taken me a long way:

Commit to examining our consciences every day and go to Confession more than once a month. Once a month just isn't enough for people addicted to mortal sin. Really, if we are trying to strengthen our relationship with God, we need to be thinking about what to do that pleases Him and not what we do that pleases ourselves. The end of the day before going to sleep is the best time to do examine our conscience, accompanied by an act of contrition. Confession – Its Fruitful Practice (With an Examination of Conscience) is a handy booklet to help us face our sins and amend our lives.

Make a habit of practicing awareness of the presence of God. It becomes more and more difficult to sin if we habitually recall the presence of God. Ignatian spirituality calls for stopping what we're doing a couple of times a day to reflect on how we have encountered God that day, praying about what He wants from us here and now, and thanking Him for His graces. With today's wristwatches being capable of setting off an alarm, it's easy to set a time to do this, and the time involved is only about 10 minutes. How complicated is that?

Pray the Traditional Morning Offering from The Apostleship of Prayer. Offering everything of our day to God starts us out on the right foot and combats sinful intentions as we go about our business.

These three simple spiritual practices will lead to others and draw a person slowly but surely into putting God first. Combating secularization gets easier as we seek God's will in our lives and look to why the Church teaches what she does. We will find ourselves seeking more "God time" daily and find ourselves becoming more humble and trustful of God. We will develop a profound sense of who we really are as children of God. After awhile, the attraction to sins like contraception become weaker and weaker.

Is it easy? No, because it requires firm commitment and a willingness to conform ourselves to the will of God. Is it simple? Yes. What do we have to lose? Hell.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

Again, I'd like to thank Barb for allowing me to repost her beautifully written, timely articles! Please visit her website at www.sufferingwithjoy.com

The Spiritual Malaise Behind Contraception – Guest Post

My thanks to Barb Schoeneberger for allowing me to reprint this post from her website. She includes many essential links in this beautifully written essay:

In recent weeks the HHS mandate has brought to the fore our First Amendment rights as Americans. Since the mandate is about forcing the provision of "free" contraception on all sorts of entities, and since the Catholic bishops of the United States seem to have finally woken up to the real agenda of the Obama administration, quite a lot of hooey concerning Catholics and contraception has been bruited about in the media. The religious liberty issue, has opened the door to frank discussions on contraception, an extremely touchy topic in the Church, and one we just can't ignore if we care about our faith and coincidentally, the future of our country.

I'm one of those introverts Colleen Spiro wrote about in her funny post, Thinking Out Loud. When I'm faced with something as monumentally shattering as the blocking of my first amendment rights of religious liberty, and as monumentally rebellious as the tone of contracepting Catholics in the opinion-sphere, I have to take weeks to chew on the whole thing to sort out my feelings before I jump into the fray. Most of what has been written to uphold Church teaching on contraception lately has been good and truthful, but, in my opinion, unsatisfactory in changing the hearts of so many Catholics who are rebelling against it.

You can learn a lot from Father Mitch Pacwa's good article in the National Catholic Register: Abortion, Contraception, and the Church Fathers. And our Catholic Sacred Tradition comes from the Apostles and Christ who were Jews, so we can go back to the Old Testament to find out how God felt about contraception in Genesis 38:9-10 where He slew Onan for practicing coitus interruptus, calling contraception "detestable." However, Father Pacwa's article, quoting the Bible, and reading blog posts about what Pope Paul VI wrote in Humanae Vitae pretty much amounts to spitting in the wind where committed Catholic contraceptors are concerned. That's because of the deep spiritual sickness behind the practice which makes a person blind and deaf to God's will.

How the contraceptive mentality grew in the Church

Although the battle against contraception is ages old as we see from the sources cited above, the bishops of the Church have a lot of damage to undo regarding their failure to teach unequivocally throughout the 20th century until now the whys and wherefores regarding the evils of contraception. The shocking open rebellion against Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae was a blatant sign of how fatally divorced Catholics at large, theologians, and those in religious life had become from seeking God's will in their own lives and a humble assent to the truths of the Catholic faith. This rebellion could not have happened if so many Catholics were not already well on their way to spiritual blindness.

Sandro Magister of Chiesa takes us closer to one aspect of how the contraceptive mentality began to grow in the 20th century Church when he writes "Ego te absolvo." The Catholic Route to Birth Control on September 8, 2010, and gives us more insight into how the whole "follow your conscience" thing got promoted without qualification or education on what a rightly formed conscience is.

In A Case of Conscience. Confessors and Contraception from September 15, 2010, he writes:

But then the guidelines of the hierarchy became more strict. Beginning with the 1931 encyclical by Pius XI Casti Connubii, confessors began to be told not to rely on "good faith" anymore, but to instruct the penitent on the gravity of the sin that he was committing…

…In contemporary practice, however, many priests continued to give absolution without inquiring too much into the behavior of spouses, counting on their "good faith."

I recommend reading both articles because they point us in the right direction – a problem of the heart. In "Ego te absolvo" Magister's illuminating introductory paragraph gets right to it:

"It is believed to be one of the most reliable proofs of the relentless advance of secularization: the contrast thought to have been created between Church teaching on contraception and the actual behavior of the population, including observant Catholics."

I spent many years not practicing my Faith at all, pretending God didn't exist, living as a secular humanist stuck on stupid. As I look into my own heart for the answer to why Catholics contracept and why many fight giving it up, I see the "diabolical disorientation" Sister Lucy of Fatima wrote about in numerous letters to priests and fellow religious and in books she has written.

Getting back to basics

To be a good Catholic one must assent to the teachings of the Church (CCC #892) which come from Sacred Scripture and Tradition whether or not we understand the whys behind a teaching. A corollary obligation is that we must study and learn our Faith, which is a life-long effort. As Father John Hardon, S.J. (RIP) said so often, "Catholics who just come to Church once a week and do nothing else will not be saved."

After much prayer and consideration, I believe I finally got what he was saying. Accompanying the assent to and study of the Faith is adhering to the laws of God and the Church while simultaneously developing an ever closer relationship with God. I don't think the two can be separated – assent and adherence on the one hand, and relationship with God on the other. I also don't think that priests and bishops can even get to first base with Catholic contraceptors without framing the subject within one of the most basic foundation stones of relationship with God: trust in Him.

Tomorrow in Changing Hearts on Contraception I'll take up what I believe to be the solution to counteracting the contraceptive mentality. It's not easy, is a long and arduous journey back from darkness, and requires the right use of our free will, but it is simple.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

Again, thank you, Barb, for the beautifully written post!

Lessons in the Journey Book Review

Lessons in the Journey by first-time novelist Patrick Dawson is the hopeful and moving story of Elizabeth "Liz" Finch, a pediatric surgeon. At the beginning of the novel, she learns that her 14-year-old daughter has been shot and is not expected to live. The book is told mostly in flashbacks of Liz's life, lessons she's learned in her life's journey.

It is through these flashbacks that we become acquainted, not only with Liz, but with the other major characters in the story. We discover how Liz initially met her husband and their romance, how she became a mother. Like most of us, Liz is not a perfect human being. She has made both good choices and bad choices throughout her life. There have been sad moments as well as happy ones.

The other characters include Liz's husband (Kevin), their daughter (Mary Beth), her sister (Rachel), Anna, the black housekeeper, as well as Liz's parents and friends. I especially enjoyed the Catholic flavor of this novel: there are Holy Communions, Catholic weddings and Catholic funerals, and Natural Family Planning even makes an appearance when the priest shares with Liz a few quotes by John Paul II and some information on NFP.

I read this book while traveling on a plane and I have to say that it really made the trip go quickly. Dawson (a man) did an outstanding job of writing and creating the narrative voice of a woman.

Lessons in the Journey is an enjoyable read filled with believable characters. The author has a beautiful and engaging writing style which kept me turning the pages quickly. In flashbacks of Liz growing up, he captured well the feeling of the 60′s and 70′s. The ending was superb. The cover is eye-catching and nicely done.

Highly recommend!

The author is giving away a free Kindle copy to one of my readers. Leave a comment below (before Monday, April 9) to be entered!

Copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach