ST MARY'S was built in 1842, consecrated in 1942 - the Catholics are a bit funny about these things - and is described on a board outside as the Mother Church of Teesside.

In all her years, with all her darling daughters, Mother may never have seen anything remotely like last Sunday. The At Your Service column, in an altogether shorter and less blessed incarnation, has rarely experienced anything so improbable, either.

The Pugin-designed church is in Major Street, Stockton, just beyond the town centre but a million miles from it. High rise flats tower on one side, a gas holder on the other. The Spotted Cow grazes - lazes - on the corner.

Once the parish had five priests and seven Sunday masses. Thousands of God fearing toilers, often Irish, lived and died within a few hundred yards.

Now there's one mass, many fewer faithful. Fr Zbigniew Zieba - "People call me Fr Ziggy," he says, which is probably just as well - is in charge of St Mary's but one of four priests in a "cluster" serving the whole of Stockton.

The population is shifting, or has shifted. Newcomers may be immigrants, or asylum seekers, often African. Last Sunday they celebrated an African mass for folk from all over Teesside - drums, dancers, people who still believed that going to church meant dressing in their best, who still looked like they were enjoying it.

Many nowadays appear simply to be enduring it, or to suppose that second best jeans will suffice.

We prayed that - "like the Children of Israel seeking the promised land" - the asylum seekers might find a place of safety and of peace. While Stockton-on-Tees may not be everyone's vision of nirvana, it was a remarkable occasion - Mother's pride - nonetheless.

Mass is due to start at 11am. Half an hour beforehand an ever-growing line of drummers throbs an upbeat welcome outside the church, African and European joyously side-by-side.

Any within a quarter of a mile contemplating a Sunday morning lie-in may be pleasantly awoken. An elderly lady arrives in a wheelchair, dog on her lap, waves at the musicians as if they'd been there every Sunday since Eric Delaney was a drum kid.

Others say how they wished that they'd brought their cameras. The Northern Echo's Mr Booth had happily remembered to do so, a lens the length and weight of an elephant trunk by no means the most unlikely sighting at St Mary's.

A queue forms outside, partly because those attending have been asked to write their Christian names on a sticky label and prominently to wear it.

"Orders from above," says a chap manifestly identified as Stan, though whether he means Fr Ziggy or some yet higher authority is not immediately apparent.

Flags of the African nations are strung across the foot of the sanctuary, what appears to be a zebra skin is draped around the lectern, an African rug elsewhere. There are children, too, perhaps oblivious to the colour of their own skin but in any case united by the red shirt of the Boro.

The service begins ten minutes late, like a football match obliged to wait until everyone can be funnelled in. It's led by Fr Nick Jennings, who's spent several years in Kenya, and by Fr Primus, an African priest now serving in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

The pew sheet describes it simply, prosaically, as the Seventh Sunday of the Year.

A large church overflows, a kaleidoscope in black and white. For Paul Simon fans, the infectious music would be reminiscent of Graceland. Graceland's quite appropriate, really.

Parts of the service are in English, parts in one or more African languages. Some parts are in both, for Stocktonians not over-fluent in Swahili.

Though sometimes the only familiar words are "Bwana" - which presumably means "Master" - and "alleluia", which is universal, none can doubt the meaning of it all. Only the speaker system proves a bit Third World.

The gospel reading, appropriately, tells the story of the man sick of the palsy whose friends remove the roof so that he can be lowered through the multitude to Jesus. It's about standing out from the crowd, being different.

"We are called as Christians to make a difference in other people's lives," says Fr Primus in his homily.

There are prayers for asylum seekers afraid to return to their homeland, that people of different nationalities might truly love one another, for forgiveness of the past sins of slavery, for the children of the world.

At the end there's a gloriously upbeat version of How Great Thou Art and an invitation to a very English cup of tea in the day centre. The dancers just keep on going, marked timeless. Few of the congregation seem in a hurry to leave, or to embrace the Spotted Cow.

The mass lasts 75 minutes, the drummers beating a rhythmic retreat as finally we all leave. It has been memorable in any language on earth.