Okay, I’ve been looking at all the meta/analysis posts for Midnight Mass and no one is talking about Serenity? That one prayer that Father John/Paul keeps praying during those AA meetings with Riley?
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
Throughout the entire series, we see Riley struggling with his addiction, his memories of the accident, and how he’s dealing with things while back on the island.
He’s a social pariah, a drunkard like poor Joe Collie.
Like the prodigal daughter Erin or the Muslim Officer Hassan.
He can’t change the fact that he was drunk. He can’t change the fact that a young girl died because of his negligence. He can’t change the fact that he spent years in prison. He can’t change the fact that he has to live on the island and go to the meetings.
He knows this. Riley knows this. He can’t change this.
It’s really interesting to watch those AA meetings because, for me, those were some of the most interesting scenes throughout the series. It seems like Riley, for the most part, has accepted that he made a mistake and that he can’t do anything about his past, but move forward and try to be a better person. To beat his addiction, to become useful to his parents and try to live a life on the island. Yet, he can’t move on just yet—he’s still haunted by his past, but with time, he will get there.
And I think that’s why I was completely bowled over by Riley’s passing. Riley couldn’t change the fact that he was a vampire. He couldn’t change the fact that after all these years of being sober, he is now struggling with this hunger, this addiction to blood.
He has to refuse to drink from his family and Erin.
But, in doing so, he has the courage enact change and wisdom through others.
He won’t give in to the hunger inside of him—a hunger that has taken over Father John/Paul.
And so, in Riley’s Serenity, he accepts that he’s going to die while showing that he has both courage and wisdom.
He dies with Dignity and in Serenity.
(And he dies with the Forgiveness from the life that he had taken).
Meanwhile, we have Father John/Paul. He can’t change the fact that his sister Alice died when he was young. He can’t change the fact that many years have passed to have any time spent with Millie and Sarah. He can’t change the fact that he’s an old man riddled with dementia.
And yet, he does try to enact change.
When he finds that “angel” in the cave, he immediately tries to bring that thing back to Crockett. He has courage and faith that he can reverse the clock for both Millie and Sarah. He has courage to return back home and make it so that he can alter the lives of so many of his sheep still in his flock.
He thinks, he acts, and he does it.
Little Leeza can walk again. Annie doesn’t have to use her glasses again. Ed doesn’t have back pain.
And Millie? Millie is young again, she is no longer suffering from dementia.
And yet… that courage is not the sort of courage associated with Serenity.
That courage was spurred on by the fear of death—a fear that has been present with him since he was a young child. A fear of death that has haunted him all his life so that when God brings him an angel and he is granted a new, resurrected life, Father John/Paul takes that chance.
(Riley doesn’t. Riley spat in the face of God and throws it all away).
And Father John/Paul now has the courage to pursue his lost youth with the woman he loves and to spend time with his daughter.
(But that’s spurred on by guilt, by too many years gone by. Regret. Not at all Serene).
It isn’t until the very end, when he realizes… No. No, he’s got this all wrong.
After all this time, after turning the townspeople into undead monsters like him, from unwittingly allowing Bev to take charge and become a monster in her own right… He’s wrong.
It wasn’t courage and it wasn’t wisdom that spurred him on.
(But it’s through Forgiveness from his daughter, his lover, that he finally welcomes death with a sweet embrace.
With Millie holding him close and Sarah resting on their laps).
