St. Expedite – the Patron Saint of Nerds.

Today marks the unofficial feast day of St. Expedite – the patron saint of emergencies, examinees and everyone who needs a quick solution to their problems. Touted the “The saint for real time solutions” and “The Patron saint of nerds”, geeks and hackers have also more recently claimed the saint as their own. 

St. Expedite: Patron Saint of Nerds
Feast Day: April 19.

A very obscure figure in the Roman Catholic Church, almost nothing is known about the life of St. Expedite. He is typically depicted as a young Roman centurion squashing a crow beneath his right foot and often pointing to a sundial. St. Expedite is too pagan to be a proper saint, yet despite attempts to quash the status of his sainthood by the church, he is too popular to simply toss away his statues, as time and again St. Expedite comes through for people in need.

The legend claims that in 1798, a Parisian group of nuns received a crate with the words "spedito" stamped on the side, meaning “rush with haste". However, at that time, crates were usually labelled with the name of the saint on the outside; for instance, St. Joseph would have "Joseph" etc.  Upon opening the crate, the nuns discovered either a beautiful statue of a saint or the deceased body of a saint who had been buried in the Denfert-Rochereau catacombs—the facts as to the contents of the crate are a little shaky.

Those who sent the crate had simply stamped "spedito" on the side (and, if it were a corpse, the necessity of a quick delivery is logical), and no other paperwork was provided. The nuns either assumed Expedite was in fact the martyr’s name or took it as a divine sign and hastily “christened” the statue (or corpse) "St. Expedito", or St. Expedite. They invoked the name of the Saint in prayer and were amazed at how quickly their prayers were answered. The news of this saint who cheerfully dispensed swift miracles soon spread rapidly throughout the Catholic community.
A similar fable exists and has gained popularity about a crate delivered to the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadeloupe in New Orleans.

However, some meagre evidence suggesting the possible existence of the real St. Expedite: a commander of a Roman legion in Armenia who converted to Christianity and he was beheaded by the emperor Diocletian in 303 AD.

It is fitting that St. Expedite is the patron saint for people who need things done in a hurry, as our motto at Expedite Publishing is to provide “fast editing” (usually for those people rushing toward a deadline!).

And in honour of this feast day (as it is our first) we are offering 25% off all editing and proofreading for the month of May. Simply quote “NERD” in the subject line, and send your document to submit@expeditepublishing.com.au
Happy Writing!

More information about St. Expedite can be found at: http://saintexpedite.org/index.html