1 December 2025

There was concern in the cathedral. Numbers had been dropping. Income and prestige went with it. People weren’t so interested in making pilgrimages to the bones of St. Andrew. The staff at the cathedral in the ancient city of St. Andrews were puzzled!

For two centuries, numbers had been phenomenal. Times had changed – but not without a fight. For the next two hundred years, the staff at the cathedral struggled to arrest this decline.

They remodelled the shrine to St. Andrew. They attempted to diversify the attractions by creating chapels dedicated to some novelty saints. They petitioned the Pope for indulgences to help their cause.

‘With their patron saints no longer working miracles,’ wrote Tom Turpie in his illuminating essay, ‘the efforts of the bishops and canons were ultimately nothing more than an exercise in decline management.’

It is in the nature of institutions to die. Just like the life which was centred on the cathedral at St. Andrews died, so the life of the Kirk as we know it  and love it must die too. For too much energy may be wasted in what Turpie calls ‘an exercise in decline management’.

Where to begin? We of all people should know where to begin. Like the world, we are afraid of dying and death and yet we of all people have something magnificent and surprising to say about it. For our life is centred upon Christ, his death and resurrection!

Here he has revealed the secret of life in all its fullness. A new life is born which has the most extraordinary effect. For as Jesus says, ‘I when I am lifted up will draw all people to myself.’ Or as the poet elegantly says, ‘Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.’