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 Ascension of the Lord 2020 Published: Sunday, May 24, 2020 Think, perhaps, of the hardest confession you ever had to make, and then how exhilarating it was to finally be set free and be given a fresh start; set free from that "ton of bricks" of bitter remorse that had so long been weighing down your soul. |
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Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A Published: Sunday, May 17, 2020 We are grateful finally to be able to resume the celebration of Mass on a limited basis and there are many things about the restrictions we presently have to live with that I don’t like any more than you do, but with which we have to obey — and which are, in fact, the price of self-sacrificing love. |
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Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A Published: Sunday, May 10, 2020 We take all the reasonable steps we can think of to mitigate the threat — God gave us brains and he expects us to use them — and then we place in his hands all the things we cannot prevent. And so, to us also, he says “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” |
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Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A Published: Sunday, May 3, 2020 We do what we can to care for both the physical and spiritual needs of those the Good Shepherd entrusts to our care. Hence the suspension of public Masses in order to maintain necessary physical distancing, but live-streaming Masses to better enable people to make a good spiritual communion. Neither is ideal, but we live in an imperfect world, so this balancing of prudence and piety is what the care of the flock requires. |
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Third Sunday of Easter, Year A Published: Sunday, April 26, 2020 The grace of all the Eucharists we have received in the past remains in us even during this time when access to additional receptions of the Eucharist is temporarily not available. In this way, the access that you and I have even in this time of COVID-19 is far greater than that of Jesus' own contemporaries because our eyes are open. |
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Divine Mercy Sunday 2020 Published: Sunday, April 19, 2020 And so he says also to us, “Peace be with you” and he shows us also the wounds by which we were saved, the wounds that were the cost of loving us to the end, the wounds that reveal that it really is him and that the mercy he brings us is real too. |
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Easter Sunday 2020 Published: Sunday, April 12, 2020 You and I are gathered here today to proclaim the Good News that sin and illness and death do not have the last word. COVID-19 has caused a crisis that, like everything else, God will use for his purposes. If he can take Jesus’ gruesome death on Good Friday and turn it into the most powerful instrument of salvation ever, he can certainly take the worst effects of the coronavirus and do the same. |
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Easter Vigil 2020 Published: Saturday, April 11, 2020 Do we truly believe that Jesus rose from the dead and — more fundamentally — that by placing our faith, our trust in him, by doing things his way, we can have a share in his victory? Even when it means “passing through the valley of the shadow of death” ourselves? |
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Good Friday 2020 Published: Friday, April 10, 2020 He is the master; we are servants whose only role and source of greatest blessing is to do God’s will as best we know it. That is why when people ask me about future plans, I frequently add the phrase “God willing,” which is a small reminder that whatever God wills — even difficult things — comes first. |
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Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper 2020 Published: Thursday, April 9, 2020 And yet, even knowing how weak and unreliable they were, Jesus washed their feet. And then through them he tells us, who are also weak and unreliable, that we should serve others with just that much humility. |
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Palm Sunday 2020 Published: Sunday, April 5, 2020 So today, we lift up to the Lord ourselves and all of those people who are living in fear throughout the world, especially those who are suffering and dying unaccompanied. Jesus at least was accompanied by John, his mother and a few women … and even so, he felt forsaken. You and I are not forsaken. Our Savior is with us and so we place our trust in him. |
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Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A Published: Sunday, March 29, 2020 We are learning to live with uncertainty, and we are learning to trust in God regarding our future. And above all, we realize far more intensely than ever before what a gift it is to be able to gather for worship and receive the Lord in the Eucharist. |
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Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A Published: Sunday, March 22, 2020 The current "Great Fast" forced on us by COVID-19 is an invitation for us to recognize that God still remains present to us and still offers his grace to us in other ways during this time when we cannot receive him in the Eucharist. |
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Ash Wednesday 2020 Published: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 Let us pray, fast and give alms in secret, and let us do what we can to call our society to repentance of all the evils that afflict us as a nation. |
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Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Published: Sunday, February 16, 2020 By forbidding us to take human life, God intends that we live in harmony with each other and treat each other with respect, and Jesus holds us to this higher standard. |
