rom the moment she first appeared as the luminous angel Monica on CBS's Touched by an Angel in 1994, her fans have been hopelessly enamored of Roma Downey and her lilting Irish brogue. They can't seem to get enough of her, and they remain fascinated by stories of her childhood in ravaged Northern Ireland as well as details of her personal life, particularly since her divorce this year from movie director David Anspaugh (Rudy, Hoosiers). Her series, brought back from the brink of disaster in its first season-due, in part, to a wave of vocal viewer support-regularly draws the second-highest numbers for any television drama in prime time (after ER).

Downey's popularity, however, transcends Touched by an Angel. Last year, her November sweeps TV-movie, Borrowed Hearts: A Holiday Romance, was CBS's second-highest-rated Sunday-night movie. This week, she attempts to conquer Sunday night again with Monday After the Miracle, the compelling story of the relationship between Helen Keller (Moira Kelly of CBS's To Have & to Hold) and her teacher Annie Sullivan (played by Downey). In addition, the 100th episode of Angel, with guest stars Wynonna Judd and Celine Dion, airs right before the movie.

At 35, Downey exudes a beauty that is magnetic. Her skin is more radiant in person than on-screen. And her personality is far more delightfully fiery than that of the angelic Monica. Sitting in the den of her home in Salt Lake City, where Touched by an Angel is filmed, Downey sips a glass of red wine and watches her 21/2-year-old daughter, Reilly Marie, play with her toys. As rain pelts the window, she talks openly about the breakup of her marriage, how she cried in the arms of costar Della Reese and the rumors of a romance with costar John Dye. ("I should be so lucky!" Dye said earlier in the day, then added mischievously, "She is very flirtatious, and I am very flirtatious-kind of like highly charged sexual beings. We kind of bounce off each other. I don't think it's surprising that someone would write about it. That is, if anyone watched us together.")

For Roma Downey, it has been both a "tough" year and an exceptional one. She attributes her phenomenal success to one simple axiom that she could have learned from Monica: "Fashions come and go, hemlines go up and down, but God is forever."