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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Installation of Reader, Acolyte and Candidacy of Seminarians 2019 Published: Saturday, December 14, 2019 And what we are sent to do, in one way or another, is to “testify to the light.” To proclaim Jesus Christ as lectors, to glorify him in worship as acolytes and to offer ourselves as candidates, ready for whatever the Lord asks of us. In our case to live a life of sacrificial love, serving him as priests of the Diocese of Little Rock. |
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Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2019 Published: Thursday, December 12, 2019 Ten years after the Spanish conquest, Jesus intervened. He sent his mother to reassure the very people who are closest to his heart — the poor, the weak and the vulnerable — that they are not alone. |
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Feast of St. Nicholas 2019 Published: Friday, December 6, 2019 We also learn that we are to be the means by which the needs of others are met. After all, they'll be depending on the kindness of others. And isn’t that the witness of St. Nicholas, whose feast we celebrate today? Do you know his story? His generosity saved three young ladies from being sold into a terrible life of slavery. |
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First Sunday of Advent 2019 Published: Sunday, December 1, 2019 If you want to reach the ultimate destination of heaven, you need to make sure that Jesus is the one in the driver’s seat of your life, because he is the one who knows the way. And of course, this will require you to live the way he wants you to live. |
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33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, November 17, 2019 In today’s Gospel Jesus says to do three things: 1.) Keep your eyes open; 2.) Be courageous; and 3.) Persevere ... and he promises to help us through these troubles. Here Jesus is speaking about the persecution of believers and the terrifying end of the world. but what he says applies to other troubles as well. |
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31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, November 3, 2019 But Zacchaeus didn't stop there. Jesus loved and accepted him unconditionally, but Zacchaeus knew that to reciprocate this love, he'd have to make some changes, which I'll bet he'd wanted to do for a long time but just hadn't or felt like he couldn't. |
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All Souls' Day 2019 Published: Saturday, November 2, 2019 Purgatory is the process by which God remedies all that is lacking in us and that’s where our prayers can help the dead. Just as in this life, so also in purgatory, growth and healing is much easier when you’ve got help, in this case the help of our prayers. |
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Solemnity of All Saints 2019 Published: Friday, November 1, 2019 A career is something we choose. It is a response to the question: “What do I want to do with my life?” And so remains focused on the self. A vocation, on the other hand, responds to the question: “What does God want me to do with my life?” And so is focused on something bigger than the self. |
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Blessed Stanley Rother Catholic School Graduation 2019 Published: Monday, October 28, 2019 When Blessed Apla's arrived in Santiago Atitlan five years later, he would discover that the most important things he had learned in the seminary had to do with human virtues rather than academic subjects, and among them the things that were most useful to him here were what I mentioned before: his humble, courageous perseverance. |
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30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, October 27, 2019 (Blessed Stanley Rother) lived most of his priesthood here, and learned your customs and your language. Your home became his home. He gave himself to you fully in life long before he gave himself to you in death. And his heart remains here in this church among you, the people to whom he gave his heart as a priest long before he gave it to you as a martyr. |
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29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, October 20, 2019 And above and beyond whatever benefits others may receive from our prayer and good deeds, these acts of piety and service benefit us who pray — indeed, they are the means by which we become saints. |
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28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, October 13, 2019 Well when was the last time you said thanks to your wife or mother for cooking all those meals and doing all that laundry? Or to your husband or father for all he does to provide for your family? A lot of marriages and families would be a whole lot happier if the members said thanks more often. |
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27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, October 6, 2019 The only thing a master owes his slave is not to punish him if he does what he's told. Any reward beyond that won't be due to his justice, but rather due solely to the master's unearned, undeserved kindness. In other words, if you go to hell it will be because of what you did, but if you go to heaven, it will be due to God's grace and not because you have somehow “earned” the right to go there. |
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Red Mass 2019 Published: Friday, October 4, 2019 Religion binds us to God and a system of beliefs about God: No one has fewer resources for life than the person with no religion, whose connection to the source of life has been cut. |
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Funeral for Basil H. Taylor Published: Monday, September 23, 2019 But I was delighted to see (Dad's) joy in being validated — he did a little victory dance — validated in his memory about this detail about how the Sunday obligation was understood in the past. Because, you see, the reception of the Eucharist, that intimate connection with Jesus, was at the very center of his relationship with God. |
