Last week I reread The Great Gatsby for the first time since a summer vacation in high school. With the buzz about the upcoming film (out this Friday), I wanted to revisit what I vaguely remembered to be a good but sad story.

How often do we see real change?

For starters, March 25 is the usual calendar date for the Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary, but it is transferred to the Monday after the Easter Octave whenever it falls within Holy Week. The day of perhaps the most dramatic change in human history is changed. In previous years (most recently in 2005) Good Friday has coincided with March 25, which has been customarily considered to be the date of Our Lord’s Crucifixion. That is why March 25 is the day on the Roman Martyrology to remember St. Dismas, the Good Thief. John Donne wrote an astounding holy sonnet for the occasion when the Annunciation and Good Friday coincide: on one and the same day, the Church remembers the Son of God’s very first and last moments, his entrance and exit from human life.

In the average household, on your average morning, mothers quote scripture to their children more often than they realize: “Come and have breakfast” (Jn 21:12). This is a resurrection scene by the Sea of Tiberius, and what a way to spend time with The Lord! For many years now, I have loved breakfast. The following, in no particular order, are some reflections on the great and various “meanings” of breakfast.

Perhaps more than any other time of the year, New Year’s reminds us that we’re not sure exactly what we want.

The day has always felt a little out of place. Right when the Christmas holiday is drawing to a close, men of goodwill resume their morning commute, return to their offices, consult their calendars, see that they need a new one, and . . . throw another party! After the magic and the revelry at the arrival of the Christ child, the advent of a new calendar year always seems to pale in comparison.

Last year my family home became an “empty nest,” and my mother was left to mourn the absence of her children: one son in Phoenix because of work and marriage, another in a medieval religious order, a daughter in her freshman year of college, and, finally, a son in Colorado, indefinitely, because skiing is a mystical experience. Such loss is universal. All through the different chapters of life, each of us must grieve the “going away” of someone we love, someone we shared daily life with, and now, no more.

Today’s feast might rouse similar sentiments.

I sometimes imagine how a person—any person—might react when they hear that Catholics are beginning a Year of Faith. Perhaps they would ask, “What makes that different than any other year?” Or even, “What about faith? They’re just going to celebrate . . . all of it?”