St. Expeditus, Pray For Us!

By Joe Sullivan, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

The first weekend of September the Miles Jesu men’s community conducted its fifth Challenge Youth Retreat. There were 11 teen boys participating. The team conducting the retreat not only had Miles Jesu community members but also eight members of the Miles Jesu Challenge Youth Group. 

Some of them gave talks and others helped in leadership roles. 

A week before the retreat there were only three teens registered. So, once again, we implored St. Expeditus to send more youth to the retreat. Why St. Expeditus, you ask? He had become the patron saint of our Challenge Retreats starting with the first Challenge Retreat two years ago when we had no registrations one week before that retreat. A few weeks before it was to start, someone sent us a statue of this incredible saint who is known to answer prayers quickly when there is a tight time constraint – St. Expeditus. He was a youth and a Roman soldier who was considering becoming Christian but was pressured by his peers to put his conversion off for some time later in life. He was even taunted by a magpie which mocked him with the word “tomorrow.” Needless to say, Expeditus converted that day and was martyred for it by his peers. His statue shows him crushing the magpie under his foot while holding up a cross with the word “today” written on it. 

The Challenge Retreat encourages and implores our youth, like St. Expeditus, to not put off our conversion to Christ. Today is the day. Now is the time. Time is of the essence and let us not delay but, instead, run to Christ and His Most Blessed Mother. Every time we have prayed to St. Expeditus, he has always come through! St. Expeditus, pray for us!