2025 MLK Memorial Mass to be Jan. 18

Published: January 9, 2025

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor will celebrate the 38th annual Diocese of Little Rock Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Mass at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 18 at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock. This event was originally scheduled for Jan. 11 but was postponed because of the forecasted winter storm in the area.

Rosalyn Pruitt (right) poses with her husband, Tim, after receiving the 2024 Daniel Rudd Memorial Award during the Martin Luther King Jr. Mass, Jan. 13, 2024, at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock.

During this Mass, the bishop presents the Daniel Rudd Award to a Black Catholic who is active in his or her parish and community. All are invited to attend. It is sponsored by the Diocesan Council for Black Catholics. For more information, contact Rosalyn Pruitt at (501) 375-9617.

In January 2024, Bishop Taylor presented the award to Rosalyn Pruitt, a member of St. Augustine Church in North Little Rock. She was recognized for her more than 33 years of service to her parish community and Black Catholics across Arkansas and beyond through such organizations as the Diocesan Council for Black Catholics, Pax Christi, Cursillo, Renew International and more. Read Arkansas Catholic to learn more.

Daniel Rudd was a former slave who lived in Marion, Arkansas, and started the first National Black Catholic Congress. He published the first Black Catholic weekly, the American Catholic Tribune, in 1886. He died in 1933.

"Dr. King’s ability to articulate his dream of what we Americans could and should be has changed our understanding of what it is to be an American more profoundly than most people realize — even today," Bishop Taylor said during his 2024 homily. "This is why it is so important that we gather today to rekindle hope and recapture the dream that Dr. King articulated so eloquently at the Lincoln Memorial 60 years ago ...

"I join you and a majority of Americans in rejoicing that such dreams really can come true, and that progress has been made, but we must not overlook the fact that much of Dr. King’s dream still remains unrealized for far too many people still trapped in lives of poverty and hopelessness: Dreaming alone does not make dreams come true." Read his 2024 homily.