MASS at St Joseph's began at 9.30am. As every day, the 73-year-old Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, Bishop Ambrose Griffiths, had already been up for four hours.

"I am one of the minority of people who tend to be quite good early in the morning and poorer late at night," he says.

"I quickly learned that unless you have quiet time in the morning to say your prayers and do some reading, you never say your prayers at all."

When he was Abbot of Ampleforth, in North Yorkshire, the day began at 5am. "You can see I have slipped back a bit," he adds, gently.

It's a decade since, whilst parish priest of Leyland in Lancashire, he was summoned to Archbishop's House and invited to become the North-East's eleventh Catholic bishop, in succession to the retiring Rt Rev Hugh Lindsay.

The tenth anniversary of his consecration will be celebrated on Wednesday, St Cuthbert's Day, by Archbishop Pablo Puente, the Pope's personal representative in Britain.

"The appointment was a total surprise to me, I'd thought there must have been some sort of trouble in the parish," Bishop Ambrose insists. "The archbishop said there was an emphasis on the virtue of obedience. I was clearly expected to say yes."

The first thing he did on returning to Leyland was to consult a road map to see where obedience, and the A59, was leading him.

In those fast changing ten years, weekly Mass attendance in the 180 parishes in his Tweed to Tees diocese has fallen by 28 per cent from 77,063 to 55,517, the number of priestly vocations has slumped and there has been a disturbing number of scandals involving Catholic clergy.

"They have been a shadow over everything, a real pain," he admits.

For all the disappointments, and worse, he remains both confident and faithful, a manifestly devout and extraordinarily energetic pastor much loved by his people.

"I just don't know where he gets his energy from," Fr John Clohosey tells the Sunday morning flock at Murton, in the former east Durham coalfield.

"It must be in large measure from the Lord," he adds. "We priests only get it in small measure."

We'd been to St Joseph's once previously, for one of the last services in July, 1998, of Fr Felix Daley, retiring after 56 years in the priesthood - a long shift, as a Murton miner might have observed.

Now 85, Fr Felix lives with his younger brother Anthony, once parish priest down the coast at Blackhall, in the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Sunderland.

For Bishop Ambrose, it is his third Murton visit in six months. "It says a great deal about his mission, he is here, there and everywhere," says Fr Clohosey.

It was Mothering Sunday, of course, a note in the pew sheet emphasizing that it lasted "all day" and was not (presumably) a treat which ended after the first cup of tea in bed.

The high and handsome building, known locally as Murton Cathedral and built 40 years ago to replace a tin church that literally had been brought on the back of a lorry from Newcastle, is well filled for the occasion: Murton dressed up for mam.

(Not even the presence of a much revered bishop, of course, can persuade every incorrigible Catholic to arrive on time. The last is clocked at 9.42am and would have been quartered - if not hanged and drawn - down the pit.)

His eight-minute homily is based on the miracle of the blind man made to see. A blind man three rows in front listens with feelings that probably cannot be imagined.

The bairns are uncommonly active, for want of a better word. It is while the column is again wrestling with the pros and cons of the very young in church that the bishop, as if mind-reading, refers to them.

"We need to be extremely patient with our young people. They may struggle to grow in the faith; they need our particular encouragement and support."

A little lad pushes his toy car noisily down the side aisle, encouragement's fast track.

At the end of the service, Bishop Ambrose also talks of the need to encourage and support one another in a "rather pagan" world. Afterwards there's tea and coffee and a chance, a part of the job he much cherishes, to talk to people.

"It's his warmth, his humility and his friendship which are so attractive," says Fr Clohosey. Frequently, adds another diocesan priest later in the week, the bishop will roll up his sleeves and help with the washing up, as well.

Eventually, however, he's collared by the column and is as generous and accommodating as ever. Even after ten years, he admits, he finds it quite hard to say no.

"It's not unduly physically demanding because it is so varied, with most days completely different," he insists. "There are many very good parishes and their response is always so wonderful."

Though numbers have fallen - "almost a straight line graph" - he believes that those who remain are in church because they want to be, not because it is part of a ritual.

"People in the Church now are more committed than many were in the past, and that is not to disparage the past, but so far nothing has happened to halt that decline."

Hexham and Newcastle has full-time lay chaplains in every Catholic comprehensive, has a vibrant youth mission team and is training its first lay deacons. Bishop Ambrose himself, 18 months from enforced retirement at 75, has been appointed to a national position with responsibility for the young and may continue when his diocesan episcopacy ends.

"The future is in our young people, in coming to understand them, helping them grow in the faith and leading others to return to it.

"My hope is that, though things would appear to have declined, the basis has been laid for future developments. The Church, certainly in the middle term, is going to be humbler, smaller and more committed."

Though others on Mothering Sunday have their hands in the washing up bowl, he has declined Fr Clohosey's invitation to lunch. "I'm afraid," says Bishop Indefatigable, "that I have a rather busy day."

* Archbishop Pablo Puente visits the Darlington area on Monday, the Newcastle area on Tuesday and on Wednesday at 5pm celebrates mass for the College and priests of the diocese in St Cuthbert's chapel, Ushaw College.