Expert: Fr. Michael - 2/24/2004

Question
Why do you have to go to a confessional and ask a father to bless you when you can go straight to Jesus and ask for forgiveness. Why do you have to use a Rosary? I am not Catholic, but am interested in the answers to these questions.

Answer
Because you can't go straight to the Lord to ask for forgiveness in the ordinary case.  He Himself determined that the Sacraments would be conferred by men, as a societal act, just as the pre-Sacraments of the Old Covenant he determined to be conferred by men.

You understand this, I'm sure.  I don't hear anyone saying that they would pour water over themselves and baptize themselves.  Just so, the other Sacraments are conferred *externally*, in God's plan of redemption, knowing, as He does, our human needs, as our Creator and Redeemer.

You do not *have* to use a Rosary, although many people find this an excellent private devotion.  We must pray, but that prayer can take a variety of other forms:  meditation, contemplation, the Divine Office, scriptural readings, the works of the Fathers of the Church, the lives of the saints, the Penitential Psalms, the litanies, etc.