Help me with this if you can

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My 11 year old daughter asked me a very good question a few days ago and I told her I would look for some answers for her.
She said " Mom, how do we know for sure the Catholic church is the one true church? Does it say Catholic in the bible so I can see that for sure? Ok, I admit it, I’m stumped, I can give her some big huge answers but she doesn’t understand at all what I’m saying, so what I need are some good answers for her but of course easy enough for an 11 year old to understand and also where is the best places to show her in the bible, I’ll admit, I’m still learning each day about my Catholic faith and I need help on these things from you fellow Catholics so please don’t think I’m stupid, I’m just learning too!! Also, she wants to know when exactly the Catholic church was started and how do we know it was the first church that Jesus started.
thanks everyone :o
 
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kamz:
My 11 year old daughter asked me a very good question a few days ago and I told her I would look for some answers for her.
She said " Mom, how do we know for sure the Catholic church is the one true church? Does it say Catholic in the bible so I can see that for sure? Ok, I admit it, I’m stumped, I can give her some big huge answers but she doesn’t understand at all what I’m saying, so what I need are some good answers for her but of course easy enough for an 11 year old to understand and also where is the best places to show her in the bible, I’ll admit, I’m still learning each day about my Catholic faith and I need help on these things from you fellow Catholics so please don’t think I’m stupid, I’m just learning too!! Also, she wants to know when exactly the Catholic church was started and how do we know it was the first church that Jesus started.
thanks everyone :o
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Well, there’s the classic Matt. 16:18 where Jesus founded His Church. Then you can show her this:

catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0031.html

That should be pretty convincing to an 11 year old I would think.
 
Hi Kamz,

My daughter is going on 13 next month, so I know exactly what you’re talking about. It began to concern me that I might not be able to help her as she was beginning to explore her faith as a young lady, learning to take it in for herself.

To answer your daughters immediate question, you may want to show her a list of the Popes which is an unbroken line of succession from Peter to Pope John Paul II. There were a few times where there were disputes as to who was the real Pope, hence the term Anti-Pope, but these were each resolved in relatively short order.

But beyond the question at hand, what I did with my daughter approximately 2 yrs ago, I told her that as a mother I was asking her to take this to prayer. I wanted her, in her own private prayer time to pray to God for the faith necessary to help her appreciate all that the Catholic Church has to offer her.

You know what, it worked. She’d started to consider whether she should be resistant to what I was encouraging wrt church and after this she has been back on board to the extent that her confirmation teachers, the DRE and the Pastor have each commented on how well catechized she is and how in-tune with her faith she is for someone her age.

I will pray for the both of you. Oh, you also need to get on your own knees at this point and pray to God that she receive the Faith necessary to bring her through the upcoming years of growing up.)

God Bless,

CARose
 
And I would also look deeper into where this question came from. It could just be from her own thinking which is good, but it could also come from friends who do not think Catholics are Christian. Your daughter may be being “evangelized”. “Where in the Bible does it say Catholic?” is a very typical anti-Catholic question.

God Bless,
Maria
 
Good point Maria! I know that at that point, my daughter was being asked various anti-Catholic questions and I was happily surprised and impressed with some of the answers she was giving.

Ensure she’s well catechised and help her with the answers as best you can, while you learn what you can to help her and your faith grow.

CARose
 
Don’t worry about anti-Catholics asking your daughter questions. When she starts to see that Mom can find an answer, she will gladly accept all the challenges that come her way, and she will grow in confidence in her faith. Then, she will start taking on questions herself and finding answers. It gives her a sense of trust that she can believe what the Church teaches.

I only wish I was challenged early on. It might have made me take stock in my faith earlier rather than later.
 
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Windmill:
Don’t worry about anti-Catholics asking your daughter questions.
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Reasonable advice. On the other hand, make sure she is not being lured into anti-Cat bible studies, retreats, what have you, and being ganged up on. She needs the majority of the time in actual Catholic catechesis which in many places unfortunatley, is in a deplorable state. I would recommend some home-catechesis.

As far as how we know that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. We don’t really know in the sense of iron-clad proof. What we can do is examine all the evidence–Scripture, Tradition, history, etc. and reasonably conclude that the Catholic Church is most likely the true Church (especially in light of the fact that anti-Catholics are great at piling on criticism but can’t posit even a coherent alternative, let alone a better one) but in the end it requires an act of faith.

Scott
 
If you read Early Church Fathers, your 11-yr-old should be able to understand this with help, you will unequivocally see the practices of our Mass in their writings. Especially that of St. Justin Martyr. They use the word “Catholic”, speak of the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and speak of following the bishop. These are the earliest writings we have to research about the early church after Jesus ascended to Heaven. Let history answer your daughter for you.
 
Scott Waddell:
… I would recommend some home-catechesis…

Scott
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Definitely the way to go, the better catechised we all are, the better able we are to defend the reason for our Joy, as we have been called to do! This includes 11 yr olds.

And I agree, even some Justin Martyr wouldn’t be bad, if you can get her to sit through it.

As good as my daughter is, there are some things that work and some that I fear would be pushing the envelope of her patience. I seek to retain a balance between what I share and giving her space to develop a personal, faith based relationship with God through prayer, which I also definitely encourage on a regular basis.

Oh, for us, on the way to school (I drive her) we pray what I call a Rosette (a mini Rosary, of sorts). We pray the Our Father, followed by 3 Hail Mary’s, the Glory Be, and the Oh My Jesus prayer. We added on the St. Michael’s Prayer and the Prayer Guardian Angel Prayer. It get’s us 1/2 the way to school and prevents us from doing some of that early morning mother daughter bickering we can get into or equally bad, early morning gossip. I’ve found it sets a good tone for the start of the day for both of us and I can feel that I’m sending her off to start her day in good form and well armed for whatever might come her way.

CARose
 
Scott,

I agree with the home catechesis. When I said, “Don’t worry,” I naturally assumed that she was taking these opportunities to teach, not simply brushing them off and neglecting her responsibility as the primary educator of her children (along with the father).

Rich
 
thanks so much for the excellent feed back everyone, I’m going to complie everything and prepare myself to sit down and have a heart to heart with my daughter. Yes, she was asked by a protestant friend where the bible says Catholic and of course I don’t want her to not have an answer and I want her to know that she has every right to defend her faith, she has told me she loves being a Catholic but she doesn’t know what to do when a situation arises when she is asked about her faith and she doesn’t know what to say so she says nothing at all, but I know I can get into that very same situation myself, kids are starting to ask these questions so early, I remember asking my mom these same questions as I was in my confirmation classes when I was 16 so I was really floored when my 11 year old asked me, I was not ready for it at all :o They grow up far too fast and the need for the right answers to their questions becomes so important to lead them on the right road. Thanks again everyone, I sure do appreciate it. 👍
 
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kamz:
My 11 year old daughter asked me a very good question a few days ago and I told her I would look for some answers for her.
She said " Mom, how do we know for sure the Catholic church is the one true church? Does it say Catholic in the bible so I can see that for sure? Ok, I admit it, I’m stumped, I can give her some big huge answers but she doesn’t understand at all what I’m saying, so what I need are some good answers for her but of course easy enough for an 11 year old to understand and also where is the best places to show her in the bible, I’ll admit, I’m still learning each day about my Catholic faith and I need help on these things from you fellow Catholics so please don’t think I’m stupid, I’m just learning too!! Also, she wants to know when exactly the Catholic church was started and how do we know it was the first church that Jesus started.
thanks everyone :o
Click to expand...
Study the Catechism together. Study the 4 marks of the Church:

One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.
 
The Bible foreshadows a church with a Eucharist characterized by the Real Presence.

For example, in Luke’s gospel, when Jesus is born,
He is born in Bethlehem, Hebrew for “the House of Bread.”

And what do we see served in the House of Bread? Bread on a plattrer?

Nope. Instead of bread on a platter, we see Jesus wrapped up like a cadaver (in swaddling clothes) lying in a “serving dish” (the manger, a feeding trough for yoked animals).

In other words, in the House of Bread – the Church – the bread they serve really is the real sacrificed body of Jesus.

The Real Presence in the Eucharist is taught at many places in the Bible like this.

The Bible also foreshadows a Church of the Popes. In Luke 5:1-3, Jesus teaching from Simon-Peter’s boat to the crowd of the shore is a word-picture foreshadowing the true teaching of Christ issuing to the saved from the Church of Peter.
 
In a class i’m taking, we are reading the book “Why the Church?” written by Luigi Giussani. It’s great, and i would suggest giving that a read.
 
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