Saint Expeditus

About Saint Expeditus

Tradition holds that Expeditus commanded a Roman legion at Melitene, in Armenia, and converted to Christianity as an adult. At the moment he decided, a crow is said to have croaked "cras" — tomorrow, in Latin. He stepped on the bird and answered "hodie": today. He died a martyr around the year 303, in the persecution under Diocletian.

The story is devotional before it is documentary, and the Church has never hidden that: what has carried Expeditus for centuries is the gesture, not the archive. His image always repeats the same scene — a soldier standing, a cross in his hand bearing the word HODIE, the crow of postponement under his foot.

He is the saint of urgent causes: turned to when the deadline is today, when the answer cannot wait, when something still has to be signed, paid or settled. In Brazil the devotion is large and loud, with nine-day novenas people count off on their fingers. His feast is 19 April.

A message from Saint Expeditus is sent to someone waiting on a result, to someone facing a tight deadline, and to tell a person that the prayer for them has already been said — today, not tomorrow.

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