There was a short film about Mass that a lot of people shared on the Catholic social media streams I was following last year as I went through the Bible in a Year podcast. It’s called “The Veil Removed,” and it offers a fascinating idea of what Catholics could argue is, in some sense, going on during the Mass.
In it, angels crowd around the altar, and the priest transforms into Jesus at the moment of consecration while also appearing crucified on a cross above the altar. A drop of blood falls from Jesus’s crucified body into the chalice of wine that Jesus is also holding as he stands behind the altar, I guess symbolizing the so-called Real Presence of Jesus in the communion wafers and wine. The fact that Jesus appears literally twice, as a crucified man and as the priest actually celebrating the Mass would not be logically problematic to the average Catholic, I’m assuming, because the average Catholic already believes that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are somehow three but also the same.
In the course of the video, obviously-skeptical congregants miraculously see all the angels and such and lose all sense of doubt.
Yet this whole film, far from assuaging any doubts I have, only creates more: why doesn’t this actually happen in Mass? What better proof of the claims of Christianity could there be then for this to be happening in all Masses, worldwide, often simultaneously? This is even echoed in the title: The Veil Removed. Why would a god put the veil there in the first place if this god wants what the Christian god supposedly wants (i.e., the salvation of all)?