Actor Jonathan Roumie’s skull rings may catch fans’ eyes, but for the man who plays Jesus in THE CHOSEN, they serve as a reminder that life is short and his choices matter.
“I…have skull rings symbolizing Memento Mori, reminding me of the transitory nature of life and the need to aspire to sainthood,” he said of his jewelry choice in an interview with Our Sunday Visitor in 2024. “We have limited time in this life, and I need to be reminded about how I should spend my energies.”
That explanation has fresh relevance as Roumie invites followers to join a prayer challenge centered on memento mori, the Latin reminder that we will die. Rather than treating mortality as a subject to avoid, he is asking people to make room for it in their prayer lives.
“Starting TODAY on @hallowapp I’ll be leading the Memento Mori Challenge, Remember You Will Die,” Roumie wrote in the caption of his Oct. 26 Instagram post. He also invited followers to meditate on C.S. Lewis’s book The Great Divorce.
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The invitation brings together two familiar parts of Roumie’s public life: his work as an actor and his willingness to talk about faith away from the camera. His rings, in particular, have given him a very visible way to explain what he wants to remember when the day gets busy.
The Lewis selection gives participants another way into that conversation. HarperOne’s reading and discussion guide for The Great Divorce asks readers to consider community, forgiveness and the things people cling to rather than surrender — questions that make the story more than an exercise in imagining another world.
Roumie’s involvement with Hallow also predates this invitation. In an earlier announcement for a separate Gospel challenge, the Catholic prayer app described his narration of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with listeners moving through the four Gospels over 30 days.
And THE CHOSEN’s own profile of Roumie emphasizes a distinction worth remembering whenever his offscreen faith makes headlines: the actor is not the Savior he portrays. The profile describes his desire for audiences to recognize his humanity and his limitations.
That makes the message behind the rings fairly down-to-earth. Roumie is not pointing to a life without flaws; he is describing a reminder he needs himself, one that asks what deserves his attention while he still has time to give it.
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