I went into this blind, which was likely the best way to go, because if I'd known I was in for a vampire story I would've gone in with my guard up, this is a series that needs your indulgence. No one in it speaks like a human, for one thing, and the first episode feels like nearly everyone is in old-person cosplay.
Which would be an issue if Flanagan was aiming for realism, but that's clearly not what's happening here. It's theatrical as heck, and watching it with that in mind allows a lot of leeway for speeches that are more about explicating philosophical positions than establishing character. Here's your religion as comfort, here's your Sagan-inspired poetic skepticism, here's your Spinoza, and in between, a breadcrumb trail of blood and gore to lead you from monologue to monologue.
I'll admit I haven't read too many reviews of this, but one thing that hasn't really come up, or at least not enough, is that Midnight Mass is funny. It may be gallows humour, but it's still genuinely funny. The image of what's so obviously not an angel dressed in vestments. Henry Thomas' line delivery about the realization that it's actually not that hard to resist eating people. Bev Keane is a fantastic villain and is appropriately terrifying in parts, but even there, the show seems to recognize its own absurdity, at least most of the time.
I don't know that there's just one moral to this story, but one thread, at least, is acceptance of our mortality, whether because of the promise of an eternal reward or just a recognition of the horrors that come when we refuse to accept it gracefully. It's a message that's been popping up a lot in pop culture lately, from Udo Kier's Swan Song to Midnight Gospel, to Finn and Jake's Distant Lands episode, and while it's maybe a bit unsettling how many artists are publicly grappling with that particular thought right now, it feels healthy at the same time. It's nice to watch something that's pulpy on the one hand, but on the other is so clearly grappling with the fact that we can die, and that if we're motivated primarily by the fear of death or an excessive belief in our own specialness that we're pretty likely to embrace the wrong solutions and fuck everything up. Maybe they could've used more subtlety to get us there, but in this case I honestly didn't mind being lectured.