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Actor Jonathan Roumie, who stars as Jesus in The Chosen streaming series, talked about his Catholic faith at the National Eucharistic Congress Saturday. (Photo by Colleen Jurkiewicz)
“The Chosen” star Jonathan Roumie treated more about 50,000 Catholics to a soulful dramatic reading of a Eucharistic passage from John’s Gospel at the National Eucharistic Congress on Saturday, July 20.
But he was somber about it.
The passage, he said, “because of the timeline where we’re at in the series, we will unlikely ever film, but I hope it might give you an idea of what it could have been like when Jesus himself said these words.”
In the voice of the character of Jesus Christ, who he plays in the popular streaming series, he read for about five minutes from the last part of John 6, in which Jesus describes himself as the bread of life and “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” and “my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”
“Thank you for allowing me that very, very intimate moment in Scripture that I personally have so longed to see. That might be as close as I’ll ever get, so it is a great honor to read it aloud for you.”
He was one of several speakers on the final revival night session of the congress, which took place at Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indianapolis Convention Center. The congress was held as part of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival initiated by the U.S. bishops.
Just a day or two before Roumie spoke at the congress, he completed a week of filming the Last Supper scenes in Texas for Season Five of the popular streaming series created by Christian evangelical Dallas Jenkins.
“At the end of the day, no matter what else I do, for the rest of my life, playing Jesus Christ will transcend anything and everything I do. It is the greatest honor, not only of my career, but definitively, of my life, and I can only thank God for the opportunity to serve him using the gifts that he gave me to impact the rest of the world culture. Glory to God — thank you, Lord, for that.”
“The Chosen” is the first multi-season series about the life of Christ. Its creators strive to base episodes on biblical passages and themes while including plenty of fictional backstories and dialogue.
The show is the highest crowdfunded media project ever and has been critically lauded. Four seasons of a planned seven have been completed and released.
He talked about how physical pain in his chest, jaw and ears affected him on Day 2 of shooting the Last Supper scenes. He said he thought, “Oh man, Satan’s at it again, trying to discourage me, trying to get instead my head.”
“Whenever we put our eyes on ourselves, that’s when we lose sight of everything. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, then things become clearer.” Roumie responded to the pain with prayer, and later found out his spiritual director, who is a priest, also was praying for him. The pain subsided.
He described the Last Supper scene as “the most important scene to our faith,” but quickly backtracked with a smile. “I’ll leave it to Bishop Barron (the next speaker) to argue which might have been theologically more important — the Eucharist or the Resurrection. I don’t know, I’m going to stay out of it. I’m not actually Jesus. I don’t know the answer. I’m just pretending to be Jesus.”
He said he thought it was especially stressful to shoot the scenes because “as a Catholic, I understand the weight — I understand the reality of what we believe.”
Roumie went on to say that attending daily Mass has changed his life. “The Eucharist, to me, is healing. The Eucharist, to me, is peace. The Eucharist for me is my grounding. The Eucharist for me is his part within me.”
In addition to appearing in “The Chosen,” Roumie also starred in the 2023 movie “Jesus Revolution” and has done many projects on the Hallow app.