Pamela Q. Fernandes's Blog, page 23

31 Alphonsus Liguori Advises us to Flee from Sin

“Devil does not bring sinners to Hell with their eyes open: he first blinds them with the malice of their own sins. He thus leads them to eternal perdition. Before we fall into sin, the enemy labours to blind us, that we may not see the evil we do, and the ruin we bring upon ourselves by offending God. After we commit sin, he seeks to make us dumb, that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession.” – Alphonsus Liguori

Alphonsus Liguori Advises us to Flee from Sin

Charles Johnston is a father and husband in Phoenix, Arizona. His conversion journey has taken years, as he felt God pulling him toward His Church but he resisted until he couldn’t take it anymore. He gave in and fell in love with His Church.  He blogs for ‘Now that I’m catholic.wordpress.com’.

In this episode, Charles talks about St. Alphonsus Liguori and his work in the field of moral theology

He explains:

-How Alphonsus turned to God after he lost his first case as a lawyer.

-His teachings on a loving God

-The stages of sin

-Differences between mortal and venial sin

How to Flee from Sin?

St Alphonsus was Bishop, Doctor of the Church, and the founder of the Redemptorist Congregation. He was born in at Marianella, near Naples, Italy as Alphonsus Marie Antony John Cosmos Damien Michael Gaspard de Liguori on September 27,1696,

Alphonsus was the eldest of seven children. He was raised by a devout mother of Spanish descent. Educated at the University of Naples, he received his doctorate at the age of sixteen. By age nineteen he was practicing law and saw the transitory nature of the secular world.

While visiting the local Hospital for Incurables on August 28, 1723, he had a vision and was told to consecrate his life solely to God. He was ordained on December 21, 1726, and he spent six years giving missions throughout Naples. In April 1729, Alphonsus went to live at the “Chiflese College,” founded in Naples by Father Matthew Ripa, the Apostle of China.

Here he discovered more than thirty thousand uninstructed men and women and four hundred indifferent priests. For thirteen years Alphonsus fed the poor, instructed families, reorganized the seminary and religious houses, taught theology, and wrote. His austerities were rigorous, and he suffered daily the pain from rheumatism that was beginning to deform his body.

He died peacefully on August 1,1787, at Nocera di Pagani, near Naples as the Angelus was ringing. He was beatified in 1816 and canonized in 1839. In 1871, Alphonsus was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX.

His writings on moral, theological, and ascetic matters have survived through the years, especially his Moral Theology and his Glories of Mary.  He is the patron of confessors, moral theologians, and the lay apostolate.

Source: Catholic.org

Here’s a book written by St. Alphonsus himself to help you on your journey to holiness.

Have you considered being a redemptorist? If you’re considering a vocation, do consider this order. I’ve been praying for this order since I was fourteen and only pray that more vocations may come to this order. Their ministry has changed my life.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Check out our podcast on other mystical saints like St Padre Pio and St. Catherine of Siena. If you liked this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it. If there is a particular saint that you would like to hear about us, tell us and we’ll add him or her to our future episodes.

We are on iheartradio, Stitcher, Itunes, and tunein.com.

We’d love to hear from you. Please rate us so that our podcast reaches out to the people who need to hear it.

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Calibre is the best to Convert Book Formats

Calibre is my go-to tool for all book format conversions. No, I have no affiliate marketing with them. They are a free program software that can help you convert a pdf or word or any other document to epub, mobi, pdf, rtf and word.

That is so cool. I stumbled on it when I was trying to get my own mobil filed made three years ago. Back then Kindle publishing didn’t auto convert manuscripts and authors had to convert documents themselves. Thank goodness, we’ve come a long way from then.

Calibre for Book Conversion

Now, I need conversions for various reasons. Book bloggers will only read kindle formats, others prefer PDF (I’m guessing for the voice option), some prefer epub files for their pocket readers. Either way I’m not one of those people who’s going to write to my publishers asking for a book format. It annoys them and they’re often slow to respond.

Often when you have requests for ARC’s you want to get back to the reviewer or reader quickly. So I use Calibre and do it myself. I tried getting other conversion software and found they had a free trial  and conversion issues. Trust me, this is all you need for simple stuff.

Now Calibre is simple to use.  You can start by downloading it here. 

How to use Calibre?

This tutorial from Goodereader is excellent.

Now, the first time you do it, you’ll suck.  The first time, I did it, my cover looked weird and I didn’t put in the metadata. These things are important, because when you forward the file to someone else, things like name, tags, publisher, date of publishing are important for the file for digital rights. It also gives your file a professional copy. So play around for a bit before you do real conversions of your book.

TEST READ

After you do conversions, test read your file. I made a major mistake with this. I hadn’t test read the file I’d created and there were weird dots and question marks all over my file. It cost me a host of reviews. So check and recheck.

The best thing is its free. Calibre is absolutely free and so its a blessing to any self-publishing indie author.

In other news, THE MILANESE STARS has got some excellent 5 star reviews. 

I’m also burning the midnight oil, getting Painting Kuwait Violet ready. Its last edit was completed this week. My publisher and I have also changed the name of my first sports series romance. The draft of Ten Reminders for the Grieving Christian is ready and I’m waiting for first edits for the fall anthology. Phew. I’m tired but good tired, if you know what I mean.

What do you use for conversion of your files? I’d like to know.

 

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Q 24 How Doctors Should work with a Dietitian!

Do you need a dietitian? I received tons of emails about what I think about patients who don’t follow diet advice. And that opened a whole can of worms. Should I study more? Should I hire one for the practice?

Before we get into this there are a few things we must address, doctors don’t get a lot of nutrition education during medical school. We study lots of biochemistry which is how molecules work in the body, their interplay, and how drugs affect them.

We’re programmed to be reactive. Nutrition factors in more along bedsides in hospitals but OPD’s and private practices focus on the temporary. But other wise we’re not trained about food.

How you can work better with a dietitian?

Learn Yourself

Once I shifted to practice, I realized I was seeing far more chronic care. That required more education on diet and I took a few courses just to get the basics right. There was a paper on this subject, that clearly shocked everyone, “How can doctors not be required to know about nutrition?” You may want to take a look at it.

I’m one of those people who has come to understand that food is medicine. You are what you eat. And once you take care of the diet, a quarter of the problems can be taken care of.

Work with a dietitian

I asked Sheba Syed, a nutirtionist about the difference between a nutritionist and a dietitian. She tells me, “MSc or post graduate folks in Food Science and Nutrition can call themselves nutritionist. Those who clear RD i. e Registered Dietitian exams are basically Dietitians.” There are plenty of people today calling themselves ‘nutrition experts’ today. Be careful about whom you hire, but you have to work with one. I feel this has changed the way my patients respond for the better, with tailored diets that are suited to their likes and dislikes. This is a very good investment if you’re seeing lots of chronic care.

No ONE SIZE FITS ALL APPROACH

There is really no one size fits all approach when it comes to food. I cringe when people show me they’ve been given some pamphlet with diet information by a doctor and told to follow this. The compliance to this is low. I understand we all want doctors to spend more time with patients and even more time being glorified receptionists filling reams of paperwork. But you need to tailor things.

I recall one DM patient not keen on diet. He kept saying, “there are so many foods, what is good and bad, how am I supposed to know?” So I prepared a list of high glycemic index and low glycemic index foods. It took me a while but I handed it to him. Days later he said, “My wife fixed it on the fridge, the diet is being executed at home, we just look at the list and avoid the foods that are  bad for me.” Yay! A small step but a step in the right direction.

WHO’S TOP DOG

I hate it when medical decisions are “who can piss farther” contests. The best dietitians are the ones who are willing to discuss cases with you. Those who are open to your feedback. Because while they’re working with food, you’re factoring in medication. So don’t get into this top dog contest.

Retain dietitians who understand your goals for the patients, who can take a step back and look at the whole picture. Someone who wants to partner with you. At this point, I’ve studied a lot about diets, because I’m using it so often with patients and myself. So I know when someone just wants to play games and someone has the patient’s best interest at heart.

Sit in on diet consults

I usually sit in at the end of diet consults because that reinforces the message. Sometimes people especially the elderly, tend to brush off the dietitian as a waste of time. So I have a system. First, when my consult is over to hand off patients to the dietitian so that the patients know I’m endorsing this person. And then I go over at the end and sit in to make sure the patient understands everything, has questions and repeat the goals I have set. The compliance is mush higher when patients see this unifying force and then tend to take it seriously.

FOLLOW UP IS KEY

This is a must. When I do general follow-ups with patients I ask about the diet. If there is a problem, then I ask the dietitian to reevaluate everything, because now I need to reevaluate my goals too. Its a good time to tweak and fine-tune the system. Effective followup will ensure long term results. So have your dietitian call or email the patient to find out how they’re doing with the diet.

Back up with Stats

You need numbers. You can’t say you’ve got to lose weight. No.

Lose 1 kg/ per two weeks, so that we hit 75kg weight in x time. Or A1C’s have to be x. Or TG’s should be Y.

You have to set goals with the numbers and back it up with numbers on the lab tests or metrics. If they don’t see progress, you’ll be going nowhere fast.

Motivate

Half of this diet process is about mindset. It requires a huge cultural shift where its okay to binge drink in the weekend. NOT. Or its okay to do a mukbang when your friend comes over and your cholesterol is touching the sky. Watch the cooking channels and you can see how outrageous food has become. The shift to a more healthier diet is going to be monumental. So motivate. My practice always send weekly motivattional stuff in the newsletter to make sure people are reminded they’re doing something good.

I hope this answers your questions. I know some will ask which diet is better and all that. I’d say follow the rules, if you’re not making headway, look at alternatives. I’ve started considering keto diets for DM patients but don’t keep them too long on it, factoring its effect on the kidneys. So be open and read, extensively. There’s lots of debate about the role of doctors and nutrition. 

But you need to consider food as medicine and what role diet is playing in the disease cycle. I hope this helps answer the diet questions. I know I’m doing these questions slowly. The last one I posted was on the GDPR affects doctors back in May. But as you can see I wear many hats. With the podcast and three books coming out this year and quite a few for next year, I’m juggling things precariously, with a medical writing business and practice.  I hope to do more of these, but I apologize for the delay.

Have any questions? Do you work with a dietitian? What are your tips?

 

 

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30 Why A Spiritual Retreat Is Good For The Soul?

“I’d like to think of a retreat as a honeymoon with God. We have the tendency to think we can solve all our problems on our own. But we have to leave things in God’s hands, knowing they’re in very good hands!” Cristina Montes

Attending A Spiritual retreat is Good for your Soul

Cristina Montes

Cristina Montes is a lawyer and a writer from the Philippines who writes for Ignitum Today, a website on the concerns of young Catholic adults. She often shares her own personal walk with Christ as a lay Catholic and believes every member of the faith has an Apostolate.

This month since we’re talking about temptation, spiritual retreats did come up as one of the solutions where you can retreat to God and evaluate your life and decisions.

I spoke to  to Christina Montes about attending spiritual retreats. She explains:

-What happens at a retreat?

-What you can hope to achieve at a retreat?

-How to pick a retreat?

-When must you go on one?

-How to prepare?

Cristina has some fantastic advice about attending retreats. I make them myself at Lent and Advent, at my own parish,wherever I’m based. But Cristina has detailed the steps, the preparation involved, the sacrifices and the rewards of attending a retreat. She aptly calls it a honeymoon with God.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to check out our podcast on like the possibility of everything with God and Learning about the struggles of Christian Life. If you enjoyed this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it.

We are on iheartradio, Stitcher, Itunes, and tunein.com.

We’d love to hear from you. Please rate us so that our podcast reaches out to the people who need to hear it.
Become a Patron!

 

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29 Steps to Overcome Temptation

“Temptation is natural. Even Jesus was tempted. To overcome temptation you must identify what leads you away from God.” Kelli Mahoney

Steps to Overcome Temptation

Kelli Mahoney

Kelli Mahoney spent much of her early years as a Christian working in high school ministry—first as a youth leader and then as an Administrator at her church. After almost 10 years in the ministry there, she felt God pulling her to the West Coast of California.  She continued ministering to teenagers by writing the Christian teens section of About.com (now Thought.co) for another 10 more years. Now she enjoys the sunshine and ocean air while God is moving her in another direction. Those teens she ministered to over the past 20 years have grown up, and so has her ministry. God has placed on her heart the need to begin the Christian Single Ladies Ministry, speaking to single women in the church that don’t always feel spoken to from the pulpit or understand how their modern lives mesh with the life God means for them to live.

This month we’re talking about temptation and I invited Kelli to share how she teaches this to teenagers, so that we adults can apply it to ourselves.

Kelli Mahoney talks about the steps to overcome temptation.

She explains:

-How avoiding temptation is key

-Why having spiritual friends is important

-When you need to seek help

-Why you must pray for your temptations

-And that you must forgive yourself

What I loved about Kelli’s advice is her candidness about all of us having made mistakes and how we should forgive ourselves and surrender to God. Trust Him, because he’s strong even though we are weak. She also talks about having a buddy system to help you be accountable. Spiritual friends are great this with and may I also suggest a spiritual director.

You can find out more by visiting the Christian Single Ladies website at http://www.christiansingleladies.com/ or on Facebook at ChristianSingleLadies or Instagram @ChristianSingleLadies or Twitter @CSL_Tweets.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to check out our podcast on like the possibility of everything with God and Learning about the struggles of Christian Life. If you enjoyed this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it.

We are on iheartradio, Stitcher, Itunes, and tunein.com.

We’d love to hear from you. Please rate us so that our podcast reaches out to the people who need to hear it.
Become a Patron!

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Over 90 Free Sweet Romances!

Who doesn’t want free books? And instead of searching for your next free read, I’ve brought you over 90 books that you can pick from 4 separate giveaways. From Paranormal to Contemporary, Historical to Fantasy, there’s something in this list for everyone, including USA Today best-selling author A. G Henley!

Free Sweet Summer Romances All July

This giveaway features about 30 books. All of them sweet romances and the best part; it’s available over the entire month of July.

Mysteries of the Heart

From the 8th of July to the 21st of July, there’s a “Mysteries of the Heart” Giveaway where you can read 27 free sweet, clean and cozy mysteries.

Clean Women’s Fiction & Romance

From 11th July to 25th July 2018, you can pick one or all of these 34 books. This list is a mix of women’s fiction and romance. So for those who want a more literary read, you can check out this giveaway!

Short and Sweet Romances

31 books are included in this giveaway of short and sweet romances which also features USA TODAY best-selling author A. G. Henley!

This runs from 17th July to August 1, 2018.

Now in keeping with GDPR policy you can opt out of giving your email address while you download these books.

Since I am now with 5 publishers, there’s always going to be free books and advance reader copies that you can sign up for! Honestly I wish I could put all 90 books here but that would be a super long post. You can go to the links in the headings and check out the blurbs. Then choose the ones you want to read. And once you’re done reading, do rate and review these books on your favorite book sellers and reading sites.

I will be regularly sharing free books, so you can sign up for my monthly newsletter. I won’t be sending other stuff except for free or discounted books and merchandise. Here’s the sign up tab!

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The post Over 90 Free Sweet Romances! appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

28 Ten Steps to Help you Discern your Vocation

“God writes straight with crooked lines.” Fr. Christian Raab on Vocation.

Ten Steps to Discern Your Vocation

Fr. Christian Raab

Fr. Christian Raab hails originally from Michigan City, IN. After graduating from Indiana University with a degree in history and religious studies, he taught history and theology at St. Benedict High School in Chicago, IL.

During this time, he earned an MA degree from Loyola University in pastoral studies with a concentration in religious education. He entered Saint Meinrad Archabbey in 2003, professed first vows in 2005, and solemn vows in 2008, and was ordained to the priesthood in 2009.

From 2009-2014, he lived and studied at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he also served as a priest-in-residence.. His primary area of research is in the area of the theology of vocations and states of life, and his dissertation concerns the ecclesial mission of religious order priests.

He has extensive experience in high school and university campus ministry and loves working with young people. In his spare time, he likes to read, play guitar, travel, and the outdoors.

 

A couple of weeks ago we talked to Tim Glemkowski about what not to do while you discern your vocation. Today we have a different perspective from a Benedictine monk about the ten steps to discern your vocation.

I first read Fr. Christian’s post, Ten things to know about discerning a vocation on Vocation Network. He makes ten suggestions that came out of his long and sometimes challenging journey to religious life.

So I invited him to share his journey and suggestions with us.  He explains:

-How God calls us

-The freedom we have to choose

-That vocation is a gift

-Why prayer is essential

-Why we need to trust God and take that first step

I especially love his statement, ‘God can write straight with crooked lines’ and ‘vocation is a gift that runs both ways.’ He also talks about the benefit of attending a retreat and spending time in prayer.  With Fr. Harry Hagan, OSB, he is the co-editor of The Tradition of Catholic Prayer (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007). You may want to pick it up if you’re considering prayers.

Vocation is something I discuss in my own book, “Ten Reminders for the Single Christian Woman.” But for all those interested in joining the Benedictine order and way of life you may want to check out their website, https://www.saintmeinrad.org/. They also conduct retreats,  with diverse themes. There’s one even for married couples, “Benedictine Spirituality as Lived in Marriage.”

“In the Church’s symphony we’re really, all playing the same score.” Fr. Christian Raab

We hope you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to check out our podcast on other mystical saints like Marriage Preparation and Learning about the struggles of Christian Life from St. Augustine. If you enjoyed this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it.

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The post 28 Ten Steps to Help you Discern your Vocation appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

BEST HEIST BOOKS FOR READERS

My own heist, THE MILANESE STARS is out. To celebrate the release, I’ve compiled the best books on heists that have ever been written.

So you love heists and robberies.?I read a ton of books before I started writing THE MILANESE STARS. So here are the some of the best books for people who love heists.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the Italian Job and the Inside Man. Each of these books feature a heist of jewels, cash and gold. Some of them have a happy ending, some don’t. But they’re all super interesting to read.

Guess the theme of my Paranormal Romance

This week I've started working on the edits of a paranormal romance.
Basically this is my downtime after turning in work for publishers the last two weeks namely A MAIDEN INNINGS & PAINTING KUWAIT VIOLET .
I've already gotten a rough draft ready and now I'm polishing it off.
I've got to get through at least twenty pages today and hope to be done by the end of the week.
Too ambitious? Maybe. We'll see by the end of the week.
Wanna guess what my theme is for my latest paranormal romance?
Feel free to include everything twilight! :)

27 St. Thomas Aquinas Proves God Exists

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas on reason and Christianity

Charles Johnston is a father and husband in Phoenix, Arizona. His conversion journey has taken years, as he felt God pulling him toward His Church but he resisted until he couldn’t take it anymore. He gave in and fell in love with His Church.  He blogs for ‘Now that I’m catholic.wordpress.com’.

 

 

In this episode, I talk to Charles about St. Thomas Aquinas and his huge body of work in the field of theology.

He explains:

-How Thomas became a great thinker.

-The evidence of science supporting the existence of God

-The mystical visions St. Thomas Aquinas received

-Where and how you can read St. Thomas Aquinas’ work.

Now about today’s podcast, this will seem like a very heavy episode and it’s only because Charles is a big fan of Thomas Aquinas as he informs in the episode. Aquinas has quite a following because his teaching forms the core of Catholic theology.

Charles has also mentioned a number of books that you can read when it comes to Aquinas and I’m going to share them below, in case you feel interested in reading further on this great saint, his discourse and debates on faith and reason.

Summa Theologiae
A Summa of the Summa by Peter Kreeft
Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by GK Chesterton
Aeterni Patris by  POPE LEO XIII

Other Books mentioned in this podcast:

That Nothing Might be Lost by Paul Scalia
Heaven Starts Now by Fr John Riccardo

For all our listeners, please recommend this podcast to people who defend the faith, apologetics and those involved in debate with the atheists. Thomas Aquinas life-long work and mission was to convince people about the existence of God.  As a Dominican friar his charism was to study and preach. If you feel a calling towards the Dominican ministry then you can write to them here. 

Thomas Aquinas on knowledge

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Check out our podcast on other mystical saints like St Padre Pio and St. Catherine of Siena. If you liked this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it. If there is a particular saint that you would like to hear about us, tell us and we’ll add him or her to our future episodes.

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The post 27 St. Thomas Aquinas Proves God Exists appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.