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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Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity 2019 Published: Sunday, June 16, 2019 In Mass — whenever I start with "Let us pray" — the answer is, to "God the Father", but since the Trinity is One God, we can't address the Father without at least implicitly including the Son and Holy Spirit. That's why, though these prayers are to the Father, they are "through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God forever and ever. Amen." |
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Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C Published: Sunday, May 26, 2019 The true peace that Jesus gives is an interior peace that is independent of outward circumstances — including inner peace in times of transition and change, like what we are experiencing today. It is the peace not of escapism but rather of that peace, which is the fruit of self-sacrificing love. It is a peace that costs us a lot personally. |
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Priesthood Ordination of Deacon Jon Miskin Published: Saturday, May 25, 2019 Our diocese is a living mosaic of very diverse people — sort of like a stained-glass window whose true beauty shines fully only when it is illuminated by the light of mutual love — when the variety of our cultures and races are allowed to shine forth brilliantly. And St. Raphael Parish in Springdale, where you will begin your priestly ministry, is an excellent example of this. |
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Closing Mass for St. Edward School Published: Thursday, May 23, 2019 I am especially touched by the gentleness and kindness you students show each other and how you support each other in your studies and as friends. Helping each other with your lessons. Welcoming newcomers of every sort to the school and helping them fit in. You are beautiful in your diversity. And your enthusiasm! |
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Diaconate Ordination of Joseph Friend Published: Wednesday, May 22, 2019 Continue to take to heart Jesus’ words and the greatness that already marks your humble, self-sacrificing heart will continue to grow and bear ever greater fruit in your own life, and through you, in the life of others. |
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Diaconate Ordination of Daniel Velasco Published: Friday, May 17, 2019 The basic meaning of the word “deacon” is servant, so a very important part of your diaconal ministry is the way you serve the Lord out in the world once the liturgical celebration has ended. |
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Priesthood Ordination of Deacon Martin Amaro Published: Saturday, May 11, 2019 You had a powerful experience of God’s love in a Search retreat and felt God’s call at a Come and See Retreat as a high school senior. With that your vocation was launched, and ever since, time and again, you have experienced what you wrote at the beginning of your vocation story: “The Lord will provide.” |
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Third Sunday of Easter, Year C Published: Sunday, May 5, 2019 Everything that they had done before, including their three years with Jesus as his disciples, literally his students (his seminarians), prepared them for what he was now asking them to dedicate the rest of their lives: to be fishers of men. |
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Fifth Grade Vocations Day 2019 Published: Wednesday, May 1, 2019 My hope is that you will grow in the realization that Jesus will be with you and will help you if you are true to him and that being true to him means doing what he is asking of you already now as a fifth grader. |
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Divine Mercy Sunday 2019 Published: Sunday, April 28, 2019 Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer that we are all obligated to forgive others if we want to be forgiven ourselves. "Forgive us our trespasses as — in the same measure that — we forgive those who have trespassed against us." This is sometimes very hard to do, especially when the damage is severe, but this helps us find healing and become survivors — no longer merely victim — of those who have harmed us. |
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Easter Vigil 2019 Published: Saturday, April 20, 2019 Baptism achieves its full effect only when we transfer our allegiance from the enslaving disvalues of this world to the freedom of life in Christ. In dying to this world we say, in effect, “world, you do what you need to do and I’ll do what I need to do.” |
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Good Friday of the Lord's Passion 2019 Published: Friday, April 19, 2019 Well all of us regard Jesus as a loved one and on Good Friday he was a prisoner about to be executed, so we have twice as much reason to listen to his last words and fulfill his deathbed wishes. His last seven words in this life have a lot to say to us who must now take up our crosses and follow him. |
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Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper 2019 Published: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Jesus took his disciples back into the past in order to fulfill that past in the present, show how the liberation God accomplished through Moses then prefigures the far greater liberation that God is accomplishing through Jesus now. |
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Chrism Mass 2019 Published: Monday, April 15, 2019 The sacraments in which these oils will be used are all moments of personal encounter with the Lord, not only for our own personal benefit and consolation, but also for the purpose of mission, of being sent forth. |
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40 Days for Life Presentation Published: Sunday, April 14, 2019 I prefer the bumper sticker that says: “Abortion Leaves One Dead and One Wounded”. The reason is that you’re not really pro-life (you’re just anti-abortion) unless you care about both the mother and her child. |
