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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2025 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, February 9, 2025 In today's Gospel, Peter, James and John leave their inheritance, their job, abandon their boats and the tools of their trade, their livelihood, even their families. They leave behind everything that was familiar and secure to follow Jesus, a man they’ve just met who makes them no promises and about whom they don’t yet know much, but in whom they know they’ve heard a call from God. And you and I are called to do the same. |
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2025 Arkansas Catholic Men's Conference Published: Saturday, February 8, 2025 Do you often feel like the Energizer bunny? We are very achievement oriented, and I know some of you have lots of irons in the fire. Perhaps Jesus is inviting you to chill a little, "to come with him to an out of the way place and rest a little," to recharge your batteries; a daily holy hour, or maybe initially a daily "holy 10 minutes," everyone of us ought to be able to set aside 10 minutes a day for prayer. |
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2025 Presentation of the Lord Published: Sunday, February 2, 2025 Today we bless candles in honor of Christ — who is the light of the nations and the light of our life — asking God to continue to rescue us from the power of darkness and lead us along the right path until we are finally enveloped in eternal light. |
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Catholic Arkansas Sharing Appeal 2025 Published: Sunday, February 2, 2025 If we are not aligned with the Kingdom of God now in the way we live our life now, how do we expect to share in the life of the Kingdom of God in the world to come? If we aren't making sacrifices to make the world a better place now, whose kingdom are we building with our efforts? Our own, or the Lord's? |
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2025 Women of Hope Retreat Published: Saturday, February 1, 2025 As we see in today's Gospel, sometimes it serves God's purposes to calm storms when we cry out to him for help. But there are also plenty of other times when the storm itself serves God's purposes and faithfulness to him requires us simply to embrace that cross with love. |
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2025 Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, January 26, 2025 God was the author of the events described, which is different from our concept of authorship. He didn’t write the text with pen and paper, but he is its source, and he guided its development, and so is in that sense the author — the intellectual author of the Bible. |
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Mass for Life 2025 Published: Sunday, January 19, 2025 We too, like Mary, can intervene with Jesus in prayer, which we do all the time during Mass and at 40 Days for Life and in our March for Life. And we can intervene with our legislators. And in direct contact with abortion-minded women and in providing concrete services to pregnant women at our life-saving pregnancy resource centers. |
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Mass 2025 Published: Saturday, January 18, 2025 It is one thing to talk about racism in the abstract, but quite another to go to the museum at Central High School and see photos of grim-faced teenagers enduring taunts as they tried to go to school, and photos of terrified adults being attacked by dogs in Selma. |
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Baptism of the Lord 2025 Published: Sunday, January 12, 2025 It's not written that God's call comes only when we're in 12th grade, or before we have to choose a major in college. Many of us reach midlife before life's difficulties have stretched us enough and humbled us enough to hear God's voice; God's call. |
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Epiphany of the Lord 2025 Published: Sunday, January 5, 2025 We are a church of theologians and mystics. Our beliefs are clearly articulated but in living our faith we are encouraged to follow our star down whatever path the Spirit of God leads us. |
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Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God 2025 Published: Wednesday, January 1, 2025 Joseph had already gone door to door to the clean people's houses, but none of them would make room in their life for an exhausted teenager who was great with child. Those clean, proper people proved to be spiritually sterile. Their cleanliness had nothing to do with godliness and everything to do with selfishness. |
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Opening Mass Jubilee Year 2025 Published: Sunday, December 29, 2024 And this year if you visit one of our specially designated jubilee churches as a pilgrim and pray there for the intentions of the Holy Father, and then go to confession and receive Communion in any Catholic church, you will get a plenary indulgence. |
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Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) 2024 Published: Tuesday, December 24, 2024 You who are parents surely remember how much you were changed by the birth of your first child. That newborn captured your heart and began to reign in your home, completely rearranging your schedule and your priorities, your sense of what is important, and so also to an even greater degree should the baby Jesus capture our hearts and reign in us, rearranging our priorities to the point that doing his will becomes the determining factor in everything we do. |
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Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C, 2024 Published: Sunday, December 22, 2024 Liturgies are always worship, for instance the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. The Hail Mary, on the other hand is not worship, but it is a spiritual conversation with the mother of God in heaven. In it we praise Mary, profess our faith in her Son and ask for her prayers. |
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Friday of the Third Week of Advent, Year C, 2024 Published: Friday, December 20, 2024 Jesus shows us that God is always true to his promises — to the death. And since every covenant is a reciprocal agreement between two parties, we are obligated to do the same thing that he did. So, do you fulfill your promises to him? To the death? |
