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.
|
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, June 26, 2016 Like Cortez who burned his boats and Elisha who burned his farm implements, you and I must burn our bridges to eliminate everything that might tempt us to return to our former way of life when things get rough. |
|
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, June 19, 2016 In order for you men to be fathers truly worthy of the name, you have to embrace your fatherhood, give yourselves over fully to all that is entailed becoming the kind of fathers that God has called you to be. |
|
Diaconate Ordination of William Burmester Published: Thursday, June 2, 2016 The obedience you promise today is not just the mere compliance of a slave. It is the self-sacrificing gift of yourself to the Lord, and so you promise not only to do what I ask you to do, but also to do so with a listening, loving heart. |
|
Priesthood Ordination of Stephen Gadberry, Taryn Whittington, Mario Jacobo, Norman McFall and Joseph Chan Published: Saturday, May 28, 2016 Ninety-nine percent of the time, your ministry will require you to lead, but not compel; to inspire, and not shame; to encourage the sheep instead of rebuking them — and hopefully, that rare one percent of the time when rebuking is needed, might never arise if they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you love them and revere them. |
|
Diaconate Ordination of Stephen Hart and Matthew Glover Published: Wednesday, May 25, 2016 In our second reading, Peter calls us to sincere mutual love, that we should love each other "intensely from a pure heart." And in today's Gospel that love and service come together in the person of Jesus Christ who "did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." |
|
Diaconate Ordination of Michael Johns Published: Tuesday, May 24, 2016 Today we formalize your response to the call of Jesus and his Church, committing yourself to a life of sacrificial love, loving others as Jesus has loved you. And so Jesus speaks directly to you when in today's Gospel he says: "It was not you who chose me, it was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit." |
|
Diaconate Ordination of Ramsés Mendieta Published: Friday, May 20, 2016 While celibacy involves sacrifice and death to self, you will discover it to be a gift that enables you to love others more fully and more freely, your life modeled on Jesus who also was celibate — probably for that very same reason — and who will give you the grace you need to live with total dedication to the promises you make today. |
|
Diaconate Ordination of Luke Womack Published: Thursday, May 19, 2016 So Luke, like the rest of us, from this day forward, it will be your duty to do all in your power to bring about "a revolution of tenderness" (88), which is the life-changing fruit of the Gospel of joy! |
|
Diaconate Ordination of Martin Siebold Published: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 And because you will be ordained to the priesthood a year from now, God willing, today you will also publicly promise to embrace celibate chastity for the rest of your life as a "sign of your dedication to Christ the Lord for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, in the service of God and man." |
|
Pentecost Sunday 2016 Published: Sunday, May 15, 2016 If I had not gone in to hear those confessions, I would not have experienced in that way just how much the Holy Spirit had already empowered me without me being especially conscious of it — I discovered his power by using it. |
|
Mass of Christian Burial for Rachel Taylor Published: Saturday, April 30, 2016 Well Mom, we have gathered here today to commend you to that Lord for whom you have longed in one way or another all 83 years of your life. You were united to him in his death the day of your baptism and began already then to live the life of the Kingdom of God in which you now share even more fully. |
|
Rosary, Visitation for Rachel J. Roth Taylor Published: Friday, April 29, 2016 The way my parents lived their faith was convincing because it was so sincere and so unpretentious. Of course we never missed Sunday Mass even when on vacation, but we also knew that they prayed privately every morning and evening: This was just normal in our home. |
|
Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C Published: Sunday, April 17, 2016 "Jesus tells us that he has come to give his sheep eternal life and that we shall never perish — meaning that even though death occurs, it has no lasting power over us. If you are looking for a shepherd able to support you in time of suffering and guide you through the final passage to the next life, then Jesus is all you really need." |
|
Easter Vigil 2016 Published: Saturday, March 26, 2016 Jesus has set us free and enabled us to face our fears and bear our own crosses courageously so as to then wear a crown, sharing fully ourselves in the fruits of Jesus’ victory! |
|
Good Friday Passion of the Lord 2016 Published: Friday, March 25, 2016 Jesus rose victorious from this very tomb on Easter Sunday, but that was not the day the battle was won; it’s just the day we found out. The day Jesus won the battle was Friday, which is why we call that Friday "Good." |
