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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Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) 2020 Published: Friday, December 25, 2020 COVID-19 has turned our lives upside down and I want to take this opportunity to thank you for how selflessly you have complied with all the protocols forced on us by this pandemic. For the first time since 1918 we had to suspend the celebration of Mass for seven weeks starting in March and have only been able to resume public worship since May 4 under very restrictive conditions, including the use of masks, which nobody likes, and physical distancing. |
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Third Sunday of Advent 2020 Published: Sunday, December 13, 2020 What is God saying to us today? What about the desert we live in? It's not a desert of sand and stone, but it's a desert just the same: lives built on shifting sand, hearts of stone, people held captive by addiction, ignorance, selfishness and all the other vices, people who long for freedom and healing, people lost in a wasteland of their own making, looking for love in all the wrong places, searching in the darkness for a way out. |
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Second Sunday of Advent 2020 Published: Sunday, December 6, 2020 Jesus has already come once and will one day come again to inaugurate a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, we should be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him. |
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Thanksgiving 2020 Published: Saturday, November 21, 2020 The Eucharist is our sacrament of thanksgiving. We gather around this altar of hope and join our grateful hearts to the loving heart of Jesus as he continues to offer himself in total sacrifice for us, who otherwise would not have a good eternal future. |
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Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe 2020 Published: Saturday, November 21, 2020 Most kings dine lavishly on the finest foods but our King is hungry today. Seated upon his throne, he looked back to this very day and said: “I was hungry ... and you gave me no food.” We have all seen him on TV. He is starving in war-ravaged regions of Yemen and South Sudan and among the malnourished poor in COVID-19 impacted countries throughout the world. |
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33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Published: Sunday, November 15, 2020 They were grateful that the master had entrusted them with the money and they wanted to put it to good use — partly out of a desire to please the master, and partly because they felt honored that the master trusted them. ... By contrast, the third servant didn’t seem to care much. He wasn’t grateful. He didn’t have much desire to please the master. So, he just put the money in storage and forgot about it. |
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32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Published: Sunday, November 8, 2020 Jesus also comes to us in the miracles of daily life: the birth of a child, any time we pray, the sacraments we receive, the Scriptures we read, moments of insight and discovery, moments of shame and repentance, moments of fear and faith and hope. |
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All Saints' Day 2020 Published: Sunday, November 1, 2020 Happiness comes not from worldly success, but rather from humble service. Yet we resist going down this ladder because we're insecure and can't see where we're going or what will be waiting for us when we get there. |
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Installation of Prioress Sr. Kimberly Prohaska, OSB Published: Friday, October 30, 2020 So today we are gathered to pray for you, that God will shower upon you the trusting grace you will need to pour yourself out in love for the sisters entrusted to your care. |
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30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Published: Sunday, October 25, 2020 "What would Jesus do?" Given his Gospel of Life and his preferential love for the poor and oppressed because their needs are greater, "How would Jesus vote?" And also, considering his dealing with the political leaders of his day, "How would Jesus have us hold our leaders to account once the election is over?" |
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29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Published: Sunday, October 18, 2020 You and I have a lot to pray about between now and Nov. 3: a renewed politics that focuses on moral principles, the defense of life, the needs of the weak and the pursuit of the common good. And of course, we must also consider a candidate's character, philosophy and performance, and at the same time make a prudential judgment regarding the lay of the land going forward. |
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28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Published: Saturday, October 10, 2020 Notice that Jesus' message here is very serious. His invitation is very generous, but he's not playing games: He also punishes. God offers us free admittance into the Kingdom of God, regardless of whether our past was bad or good, regardless of whether we were raised in the faith or not, but in order to remain in that kingdom, he demands of us a life of integrity. That we truly be who we say we are. |
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27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Published: Sunday, October 4, 2020 Why did God make us? To know him, love him and serve him in this life, and be happy with him forever in the next. Not to advance our own purposes or build our own kingdoms, but rather to build his kingdom, to administer faithfully everything that God has placed in our hands. |
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Jubilarian Mass at Holy Angels Convent 2020 Published: Friday, October 2, 2020 I am certain that over the course of the last seven decades our jubilarians have already had to die to self many times. Some of these deaths are adversities that may simply be part of the human condition — illness, loss of loved ones, the limitations of old age — things that we can “offer up” to the Lord with patience and resignation, which is one sort of death to self. |
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Red Mass 2020 Published: Thursday, October 1, 2020 Regardless of what they say, most people's actions show that they expect to find security in the things of this world and happiness in living however we want — yet this willfulness only leaves us feeling even more insecure than before, because the conscience that God planted in us will not allow us to find true peace so long as we persist in living what we know deep in our hearts to be a lie. |
