Official Website of the
Catholic Diocese of Little Rock
Bishop Taylor Homily Library
Bishop Anthony B. Taylor celebrates Mass across Arkansas and beyond. This library features the homilies delivered from March 2014 to the present. To listen to earlier homilies, please visit the bishop's Homily Archive.
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Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C 2022 Published: Sunday, January 23, 2022 There were many stages of composition and many writers contributed to the final result. God was the author of the events described, which is different from our concept of authorship. He didn’t write the text with pen and paper, but he is its source, and he guided its development, and so is in that sense the author — the intellectual author of the Bible. It reveals his will and contains his promises — and that’s how it should be read. |
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Mass for Life 2022 Published: Sunday, January 16, 2022 Life does not cease to be sacred once the baby is born, and no child in the womb will be secure until we embrace the sanctity of all life and reject everything that threatens human life or degrades human dignity at any stage of human existence. |
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Mass 2022 Published: Saturday, January 15, 2022 This human dimension is what is missing in our national discourse — hence the need to insist repeatedly that Black lives really do matter, because as a country we don’t act that way. Look at the glaring disparities in access to health care and medical outcomes, in education, in law enforcement, in employment and indeed almost every other area of life. |
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Baptism of the Lord 2022 Published: Sunday, January 9, 2022 Each of us needs to ask God in prayer just exactly how he wants us to serve him in this life. Prayer is the key to hearing your call and to opening your heart to know God's will, and do it. |
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Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph 2021 Published: Sunday, December 26, 2021 Mary and Joseph’s faith is obvious in the way they accepted and treasured the hard-to-understand ways that God was already working through and in their Son; meanwhile Jesus’ love for them is obvious in the way he humbled himself and obeyed them, even though as God he knew that he knew a lot more than his parents did. |
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Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) 2021 Published: Saturday, December 25, 2021 The child born today will struggle against the darkness his whole life, to the death — his own death. And that is how his saving, divine light will finally destroy, for once and for all, the power of the darkness, sin and death. |
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Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C 2021 Published: Sunday, December 19, 2021 Christmas is a time when families get together to share with each other. We share big things and little things, happy things and sad things. We share the joy of being together as a family. Catching up on things, seeing how the children have grown. We also share the sadness of remembering family members who have died and will not be with us this year. |
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Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2021 Published: Saturday, December 11, 2021 We have a mother who speaks our language and shares our troubles, a mother who is with us every step of the way, a mother who loves us and gives us hope, a mother who feels what we feel, a mother whose tenderness is more powerful than any adversity we will ever have to face. |
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Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception 2021 Published: Wednesday, December 8, 2021 No matter what, you are his son or daughter. But for that salvation to become yours, to make a difference in your life and in the lives of others, you do have to open your heart like Mary did. |
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Second Sunday of Advent, Year C 2021 Published: Sunday, December 5, 2021 People and nations, including our own, continue to pursue power, possessions, pleasure and prestige at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. Sexual immorality, and even worse, abortion, continues to cause tremendous damage to individual lives and to our society as a whole. And isn’t it true that we mostly act like confronting these evils is none of our business? |
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First Sunday of Advent, Year C 2021 Published: Sunday, November 28, 2021 If you are vigilant and pray and act, not to worry: you'll be ready for the Lord when he comes. But if you don't, watch out! That day will catch you by surprise like a trap. |
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Thanksgiving 2021 Published: Thursday, November 25, 2021 When Thanksgiving is celebrated as an isolated event that does not flow from an everyday attitude of humble gratitude, it can easily degenerate into a celebration of the superiority of our nation and indeed the pride of place of certain groups of people in our national self-understanding. In other words, a celebration that divides rather than unites. |
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Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe 2021 Published: Sunday, November 21, 2021 Earthly nations have borders, but the kingdom of God has no limits, be they territorial, linguistic or racial, no boundaries at all. And unlike politics in most countries, everything in the kingdom of God is true, sincere and just. No “alternate truths” that are really lies, none of the disinformation and disregard for the truth that has so corrupted our public discourse. |
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32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B 2021 Published: Sunday, November 7, 2021 If you are generous and faithful and put (God's) will first, he'll be faithful to you, and by the way, as your desires become simpler and more in accord with God's will, even most of your desires begin to be met. |
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All Souls' Day 2021 Published: Tuesday, November 2, 2021 It is obvious that this psalmist felt closer to God in the dark valley than in the green pastures. And it is always that way. For our loved ones, “the strife is o’er and the battle done,” and we pray that they may now be in those green pastures on the other side of death. |
