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Back in July, 2020, during the swift rise of the world pandemic and while The Chosen was in the midst of filming its second season, Jonathan Roumie spoke on his devotion to the Divine Mercy. Speaking from the podium at Catholify’s Mercy Night, the actor famed for portraying Jesus on the hit series on the life of Christ explained how Providence led him to acquire an image of the Divine Mercy in the Greek Orthodox style.
Divine Mercy
The Divine Mercy devotion surged in popularity in the early 20th century, when St. Faustina Kowalska – a Polish Catholic religious and mystic – experienced extraordinary graces such as visions, revelations, the hidden stigmata, mystical union with God, the gift of discernment of hearts, and prophecy. The image of Divine Mercy was revealed to St. Faustina in a vision of Christ, who instructed her to share the image.
While there have been many artistic representations of the Divine Mercy created since Faustina first engaged artist Eugene Kazimirowski to depict her vision, the one that has become the most popular was painted by Adolf Hyla. The image of Divine Mercy is one of four pillars of the devotion, alongside Divine Mercy Sunday, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and the Hour of Mercy (3:00 p.m., the same hour in which Jesus died on the cross).
Jonathan Roumie
In a clip of his address, Roumie opened up about his faith history as a boy born in Hell’s Kitchen, in New York City, to an Egyptian immigrant father who was raised Greek Orthodox and an Irish Catholic mother. The lack of Greek Orthodox communities in his radius led his family to transition to Catholicism, which did not require him to convert.
With many family members still in the Greek Orthodox Church, however, he began to spend more time with Greek iconography as he attended weddings and sacraments with his cousins. He recalled feeling nostalgic in the Greek Orthodox atmosphere:
“The beauty of the Greek Orthodox icons, the thick aromatic clouds of frankincense smoke wafting among the candle-lit altar transported me to a meditative state of holiness; whenever I prayed in this environment it just felt holy.”
Roumie explained that his father had introduced him to the Divine Mercy image some 15 years previously and while he appreciated it, his own tastes in religious art leaned more towards Leonardo and Caravaggio. It was not until he was older and beginning to follow the devotion to the Divine Mercy that he began to desire an icon of the Divine Mercy written in the Greek Orthodox style, which he noted that he had never seen before.
“If that existed, I’d be really holy, ya know?” Roumie joked. “How many times have I used excuses to sidestep prayer because of something like that? But that was my prayer, my ask.”
Providence
As Roumie held up an icon of the Divine Mercy in the Greek Orthodox style, he explained that just three days after his idle prayer, the icon came to him. His apartment building had a little area in the lobby where residents could leave unwanted, but still useful items. He said that when he first saw the icon sitting on the table as though it had been left for him, he stopped to look around for cameras, in case it was some sort of prank.
“In the 10 years I lived in that apartment, never once was there a single religious item, and certainly never were there any Orthodox style religious items. Yet, three days later after I asked for one, there it was.”
He said that he grabbed the icon “as fast as God grabbed my attention in that moment,” and it has been with him ever since. At the time of the speech, that was 17 years ago, but now it’s been a central point of his devotion for over two decades.
“This image has become the center of my Divine Mercy prayer time,” Roumie explained.
He went on to note that he told the exact same story in an audition with director Leonardo Defilippis who was directing a one-woman show on the life of St. Faustina Kowalska, for which he landed his first role as Jesus Christ. The rest, as they say, is history.
Roumie spoke for a lot longer at Catholify’s Mercy Night. Watch his full address in the video below.
