Every Anglican and Episcopal Church maintains a log of services. It's often called Vestry Book or a Service Register. They are usually found in the Vestry (the room where the clergy put on their Vestments), but in my case the Vestry is my office (at least until I convert the Bell Tower Room sometime in the new year). I've noticed that a lot of priests (myself including) place great importance in this ritual item. We lovingly full in the entry for each service, signing our names with a flourish! I was surprised to learn that Holy Cross doesn't keep a Service Register--unlike parishes monasteries don't send annual statistical returns to the Diocese. Yet neither the canonical requirements for keeping statistics nor the historical value of such records really explains, to me, the satisfaction I have when I sign my name in the little rectangle. I think it may be a vestige of the cultish part of my priestly calling--all this counting and concern with having the rituals obsevered "properly." Yet I'm not entirely convincing that cultishness is all bad. There is something very satisfying about doing the ritual correctly and often. It's like running laps and realizing that you've got half of them done already. There is a certain vastness when you look across a Registry page that makes me feel quite satisfied that what I do has eternal significance. Or maybe I'm just weird.
-t
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