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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Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A 2023 Published: Sunday, May 14, 2023 God has placed an often-unrecognized hunger for Jesus in the soul of every person on this planet, a deeply felt need for mercy and forgiveness that only he can fill, an inner ally that is available to undermine that person's resistance to the movement of the Holy Spirit. |
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Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A 2023 Published: Saturday, May 6, 2023 Jesus prepares us in the Church, in the sacraments, in prayer and in Scripture for every — as yet unknown — twist and turn that we will ever face in this life. We're not exactly blindfolded, but sometimes we get so thoroughly blindsided by events that it seems like we are. |
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Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A 2023 Published: Sunday, April 30, 2023 We need to continue to be vigilant. Good Shepherd Sunday is not just about praying for vocations. It is also about commiting ourselves to protecting the innocent lambs in God’s flock. |
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Third Sunday of Easter, Year A 2023 Published: Sunday, April 23, 2023 He was there all right, really present, but they didn't know it. It is only when he said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to them that their eyes were opened to the presence of the one who had been with them all along, whereupon he vanished from their sight. |
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Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C Published: Saturday, May 14, 2022 Jesus knew in advance who would betray him, who would deny him and who would abandon him. He accepted them just as they were, defects and all, and when the time came, he forgave them. |
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Third Sunday of Easter, Year C Published: Sunday, May 1, 2022 He rehabilitates Peter, getting him to profess three times that he loves Jesus to erase the three times he had denied even knowing him, and then he entrusts to Peter the care of his flock (the Church) going forward. |
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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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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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Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C Published: Sunday, May 26, 2019 The true peace that Jesus gives is an interior peace that is independent of outward circumstances — including inner peace in times of transition and change, like what we are experiencing today. It is the peace not of escapism but rather of that peace, which is the fruit of self-sacrificing love. It is a peace that costs us a lot personally. |
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Third Sunday of Easter, Year C Published: Sunday, May 5, 2019 Everything that they had done before, including their three years with Jesus as his disciples, literally his students (his seminarians), prepared them for what he was now asking them to dedicate the rest of their lives: to be fishers of men. |
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Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B Published: Saturday, April 28, 2018 Sometimes I have to prune and trim, which isn't always all that pleasant. But most of the time it's just a daily process of hoeing and pulling weeds and watering and even putting down a little manure once in awhile. I don't care what we smell like, what I care about is caring for the Lord’s garden, producing abundant fruit. |
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Third Sunday of Easter, Year B Published: Sunday, April 15, 2018 When Jesus rose from the dead on the third day we had for the first time in human history direct confirmation that bodily resurrection of the dead can indeed occur, because it did in the case of Jesus. This gives us confidence that God's promise to raise us up on the last day will be verified in us as well. |
