Legion of Mary Pilgrimage to Knock

At the recent Legion of Mary pilgrimage in Knock, Bishop Niall Coll said Church renewal begins when the baptised embrace their calling to prayer, service and mission.

Bishop Coll said Mr Duff understood that baptism was not simply something received, but a calling to participate in the mission of Christ.

In 1922, Mr Duff gathered a small group of Catholics in Dublin who wanted to deepen their prayer and serve those most in need. From this beginning, the Legion of Mary developed into an international movement.

However, Bishop Coll said Frank Duff’s greatest achievement was the vision of the Church that lay behind the organisation saying, “Renewal begins in people. It begins when baptised men and women discover again who they are. When prayer becomes real. When faith becomes visible in the way we live. When ordinary Catholics stop seeing themselves as spectators and begin to recognise that they are participants in the mission of Christ. That was Frank Duff’s conviction,” he said.

Bishop Coll continued saying, “Decades before the Church began speaking so much about synodality, he was already putting into practice something very close to its heart: that the Church is not simply something we receive from others, but something in which all the baptised share.” …“The Church does not need people who are simply busy. It needs people who are becoming like Christ.”

Reflecting on the challenges facing the Church today, Bishop Coll said many people had drifted from faith, some had lost trust in the Church and many young people had little connection with the Gospel. He said renewal would not come simply through “new programmes, new structures or new plans”, but through people whose prayer changes the way they live and relate to others.

Concluding his homily, Bishop Coll encouraged the Legion of Mary to continue its mission of bringing people closer to Christ and Christ closer to the world. He invited those gathered at Knock to pray not simply for the success of the Church, but for the grace to become more like Christ and to take their own part in the renewal of the Church.

To read Bishop Coll's homily click, https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2026/09/27/bishop-coll-frank-duffs-vision-was-for-our-hearts-and-minds-to-be-more-christ-like/