The Milestones of Life
The milestones of life have been celebrated within the walls of the Kirk for hundreds of years, and are still today. The Minister wrote about baptism, marriage and funerals:-
Since we hold the view that St. John's belongs to
the City of Perth and its people, we refuse no requests (within
reason) for baptisms, marriages and funerals.
It is a privilege to be able to welcome anyone to
St. John's, young or old, when the sacrament of baptism is being
sought. In the first instance any approach should be made to the
locum minister or minister, who will be glad to explain the
significance of the sacrament and to help make the necessary
arrangements for its administration.
For
the marriage ceremony, St. John's offers an unequalled ambience -
grandeur, warmth and immediacy. Each wedding is given special value
and importance. The remarkable flexibility of Scottish law has
enabled us to have marriages by candle-light on a winter evening:
during the morning service on a Sunday: conducted by Bishops of the
Episcopalian Communion or priests in their Dominican habit; in
standard English, or in the Scots language.
There are times when the Kirk is the venue for a
funeral which may be the occasion for the whole community to come
together; but the challenge of dealing with the funeral of a local
person, attended by a few people, is exactly the same as that posed
by a memorial service for a person who has attained national
distinction and recognition. The poet William Dunbar ( whose life
spanned the 15th and 16th centuries) wrote "Unto the deid gois
all Estatis" - as we would say today "To the state of death
go all levels of society."
The identity of St. John's Kirk lies in the way in
which we are inextricably bound up with the lives, hopes, aspirations
and pain of the people who turn to us at the high and low points of
our shared existence - (in Gaelic) "Se ur beatha" - "It
is our life."
