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 Most Holy Trinity 2021 Published: Sunday, May 30, 2021 There is a starting point: God loved us first. And not just first, but also second and third and fourth and so on, as many times as necessary to finally elicit from us a response of trust. |
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Priesthood Ordination of Deacons Alex Smith, Emmanuel Torres, Omar Galván, Brian Cundall and Ben Riley Published: Saturday, May 29, 2021 Once a priest, always a priest. This is not a 9-to-5 job. You are to love everyone as Jesus has loved you, 24 hours of the day, even when people call you at 3 in the morning. Indeed, especially when people call you at 3 in the morning. From this day forward, you are to lay down your life for others as Jesus did for you, 24 hours a day. |
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Deacon Ordination Daniel Wendel Published: Wednesday, May 26, 2021 God bestows on you today all the graces you need to serve him faithfully as a deacon — and a year from now as a priest — committed like St. Paul in our Scripture readings today, to the courageous proclamation of the Gospel and a life of humble service in and through the Church, modeled on that of Christ. |
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Pentecost Sunday 2021 Published: Sunday, May 23, 2021 Look around and you will see many unhappy, frustrated people who have exhausted themselves trying to make it through the challenges of life without God's power and light — doomed to failure by their own weakness and ignorance, powerless before temptation, deceived by worldly schemes that promise happiness but cannot deliver. |
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Deacon Ordination José Jaime Nieto Published: Friday, May 21, 2021 The initiative is from God and therefore, José Jaime, his choice of you for the diaconate and eventually the priesthood had already been made well before you were ever formed in your mother’s womb. Like with Jeremiah, it was for this very purpose that you were even born! |
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Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B Published: Sunday, April 25, 2021 Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, a day for us to pray for our shepherds — the pope, me your bishop, your pastor and all our priests and deacons worldwide — and to pray that the Lord will raise up from our midst many more good shepherds to care for his flock going forward. |
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Divine Mercy Sunday 2021 Published: Sunday, April 11, 2021 How about you? What kind of proof do you require? Some people demand scientific, historical proof for events that occurred 2,000 years ago, and what you can’t prove empirically they reject. Like Thomas, they put the burden of proof on God. The method they choose predetermines the outcome, and this outcome is not where the life is. |
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Easter Vigil 2021 Published: Saturday, April 3, 2021 Today is Jesus’ day of victory. It can be our day of victory too. Those who are united with Jesus in likeness to his death will share in a like resurrection. This share in Jesus’ victory begins in this life for those who have been born again in baptism and live already the life of the Kingdom of God. And it continues in eternal life for those who share fully in Jesus’ victory. |
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Good Friday of the Lord's Passion 2021 Published: Friday, April 2, 2021 Even illness and death become a blessing when embraced with an attitude that hallows — sanctifies — God’s name. 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. |
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Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper 2021 Published: Thursday, April 1, 2021 Jesus offers up his body and blood today in every Eucharist, which is the sacrament of his death to self and enduring presence among us ... and he invites us to join our own sacrifice of self to his, offering up our body and blood to the Father, from the same altar, united to that of Jesus. |
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Msgr. Scott Friend at Chrism Mass 2021 Published: Monday, March 29, 2021 As of June 15, Msgr. Friend will become the new pastor of Blessed Sacrament parish in Jonesboro and Father Jeff Hebert, currently our assistant vocations director and prefect of our House of Formation, will take over as our new vocations director. Father Jeff is well qualified, but he sure does have some big shoes to fill! |
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Chrism Mass 2021 Published: Monday, March 29, 2021 Jesus was both priest and victim, the one who offered and the one who was offered — and so are we, in union with Jesus. He did so in the concrete circumstances and all the adversities present in 33 AD. We do so in the concrete circumstances and all the adversities present in 2021. We walk by faith. |
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Palm Sunday 2021 Published: Sunday, March 28, 2021 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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Funeral for Michael Taylor Published: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 But as the 23rd Psalm insists, we can use our time in this dark valley as an opportunity to draw closer to the Lord ourselves, for he can also be our companion, our source of strength. The Shepherd has not forgotten his sheep. |
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Wake for Michael Taylor Published: Monday, March 22, 2021 With all the waiting for appointments and the results of labs and sickening medications and painful bone marrow aspirations, and everything else, (Michael) grew in patience, kindness, courage and love. He was unfailingly optimistic, always highlighting the positive in his lab results and finding ways to contextualize the negative. He was now ending every phone conversation with “I love you.” |
