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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Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph 2016 Published: Friday, December 30, 2016 But notice how appropriate that is for the ordination of two men who belong to a monastic community — indeed, a monastic family — and as such a community called to be a holy family modeled on that of the original Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. |
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The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) 2016 Published: Sunday, December 25, 2016 We have that Savior — he is Jesus, whose very name means God saves. He was born on Christmas. Welcome him into your heart. The darkness will dissipate and his light will grow in you and fill you with hope, meaning and purpose the more you conform your life to his. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. He is the light that is stronger than any darkness we will ever have to face. |
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Diaconate Ordination of Nelson Rubio Published: Saturday, December 17, 2016 Nelson, as a deacon you commit yourself to serve others as Jesus did — with self-sacrificing love. If you do the will of God joyfully, generously and courageously, the brilliance of the light emanating from your ministry will grow more and more. |
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Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A Published: Saturday, December 17, 2016 God's presence among us began with the virgin birth on Christmas and our redemption was accomplished in Jesus on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but our appropriation of this great work of salvation continues to unfold in a world in which the power of darkness and every kind of evil still continue to blind us. |
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Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2016 Published: Monday, December 12, 2016 We all have darkness in our lives. Things we worry about and bad things we simply have to endure. But we are people of hope. That is the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the message of Advent and especially the message of Christmas. In our lives too, the light can be — and is — stronger than any darkness we will ever have to face. |
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Second Sunday of Advent, Year A Published: Sunday, December 4, 2016 But Jesus did far more than just resign himself to the inevitable, he embraced his cross with love and we are to embrace our crosses with love too. |
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First Sunday of Advent, Year A Published: Sunday, November 27, 2016 If we don't welcome him when he comes to us in humility for help, how do you think we'll fare when he comes in glory for judgment? |
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Thanksgiving 2016 Published: Thursday, November 24, 2016 Indeed, the very word, "Eucharist" literally means "thanksgiving" in the original Greek. We see in this banquet the hand of God's saving providence and we are grateful. But when we leave this place, what kind of attitude will we take with us into the rest of life? |
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Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe 2016 Published: Sunday, November 20, 2016 All knowing: he knows our needs, our brokenness and our sinfulness. All loving: he wants to heal our hurt, remove everything that separates us from him and hold us close to his heart. And all powerful: he works with us to defeat the power of Satan in our own lives and in the world in which we live. |
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32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, November 6, 2016 No one will be possessed by anyone in the life to come. Moreover, because even the healthiest marital love on earth is of necessity exclusive — certainly that was Jesus' understanding — it is just a faint image of the unimaginably great love of heaven, which is of necessity non-exclusive. |
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31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, October 30, 2016 Do you realize how much you matter to him? Jesus knows your name and wants to share your life too. He loves and accepts you just as you are, unconditionally. All you have to do is say yes and he'll come to your house and stay with you too. But the only way you can reciprocate his love is by welcoming him into your heart like Zacchaeus did, which may require you to make some changes too. |
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White Mass 2016 Published: Thursday, October 27, 2016 We should gird our loins with truth, put on the breastplate of righteousness and wear as shoes the Gospel of peace. We should use our faith as a shield when confronted with the flaming arrows of the evil one, protecting our head with the helmet of salvation and arming ourselves with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. So to prevail in the struggle with evil, we need to be equipped with truth, righteousness, peacefulness, faith, filled with the Spirit and nurtured with the word of God. |
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Feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop, Martyr Published: Monday, October 17, 2016 So long as a person centers his life on his own struggles for self-sufficiency and forgets those in need and the God who has made all this possible — so long as a person aggressively affirms himself, his desire will always be to get more. This attitude, against which we all have to struggle, is the very reverse of Christianity. |
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Faithful Citizenship 2016 Published: Sunday, October 16, 2016 Regarding the options that are available to us this year, all the parties take positions that are contrary to our faith, and in the case of some candidates, there are serious questions of character. For this reason, some people will vote for one party for president and the other for Congress in the hope that they will sort of keep each other in check. But gridlock is itself a big problem. |
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Feast of St. Teresa of Ávila, Virgin, Doctor of the Church Published: Saturday, October 15, 2016 So at the same time that northern Europe was in so much religious turmoil, the already-reformed Spanish Church became the strongest proponent of the counter-Reformation, the reform of the rest of the Church from within following the Council of Trent. And the foundation laid by St. Teresa, along with St. John of the Cross and St. Ignatius Loyola, were a big part of the reason why. |
