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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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. |
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Feast of St. Callistus I, Pope and Martyr Published: Friday, October 14, 2016 As Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulchre, it is our duty to do what we can to set things right and it is Jesus emerging from that holy sepulchre on Easter Sunday morning who teaches us how to conduct this battle. |
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Monday, 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle II Published: Monday, October 10, 2016 ... We need to create a culture of encounter to serve as an antidote to our godless, throwaway culture in which people who are seen as useless are cast aside: the unborn, the elderly, the immigrants, the poor, etc. |
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28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Saturday, October 1, 2016 God loves us not because we deserve his love, but rather because love is his very nature, so he loves everything he has created without distinction. |
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Red Mass 2016 Published: Friday, September 30, 2016 Let me share with you a secret that has given me a great deal of peace when I have had to deal with difficult, painful situations. I draw on that last gift of the Holy Spirit (the fear of the Lord) in this way: I remind myself consciously that the only one I have to please is the Lord. |
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Monday, 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle II Published: Monday, September 26, 2016 And so Jesus is saying, if you welcome the poor, ordinary people who have no power, few possessions and no prestige, people who count for nothing in the eyes of the world and need things done for them, you are welcoming me. |
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26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Published: Sunday, September 25, 2016 If you ignore the poor at your doorstep: Watch out! The tables will soon be turned. We Americans live comfortably because of the exploitation of others, and not just people working almost as slaves producing cheap consumer goods in the sweatshops of far away China and India, where we feel we don’t have much control, but also right here in Arkansas. |
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Professional Day for Teachers Mass 2016 Published: Friday, September 23, 2016 For you Catholic educators, the path of Christian faithfulness requires that you do far more than merely execute lesson plans, control your students and hand out grades. You don’t just instruct your students, you also form them and help them deal with personal issues. You inspire them and motivate them to realize their full human potential. |
