A tradition in Christian worship that goes back to the 400s AD includes a service to celebrate the dates believers of the previous year died, which they called their "birthdays" into eternity. Their names were read at services or sometimes at cemeteries or catacombs. Since then, it's been called Saints Triumphant or commemoration of the departed saints. Whatever you call it, it's a way to allow departed saints, by the grace of God in their lives, to continue to encourage us. Gather with your brothers and sisters to worship the Lord for the rich variety of the young and old, learned and ignorant, people of action and contemplatives, whose common denominator is simply that the grace of God worked mightily in them.
