A Protestant friend once asked me why Catholic Confession is necessary; she said she took her sins “straight to God without the need for an intermediary.” I explained that Jesus himself has given us the Sacrament of Confession, which is a good enough reason to use it; but I also thought (without saying this to my friend) how Catholicism is incomparably rich in sacramental and devotional aids to faith, of which we Catholics often take too little notice.
These thoughts are occasioned by reading His Angels at our Side by Fr John Horgan (EWTN/Gracewing £15.50). I have occasionally mentioned angels in book blogs but this one is easily the best I have read on the subject. It makes all the difference between accepting the doctrine of angels merely as a matter of faith, then forgetting all about them (or thinking, uneasily, that they are probably a relic of the pre-Vatican II age), and actually coming to see that they are real, constantly at work in the world on our behalf at the behest of God whom they ceaselessly adore, and that their very existence is another aspect of the extraordinary richness of the Catholic faith.
