The story of the town and the story of the Diocese are inseparable. Irish labourers, dock workers, steelworkers, shipyard families, teachers, religious sisters, priests, and parishioners built both the civic and spiritual life of this area.

Nowhere was that truer than the communities along the south bank of the River Tees, where generations of Irish Catholic immigrants settled near the industries that gave them work.

As a newly ordained priest, people told me they were from Cannon Street or a mysterious place I couldn’t find on any map called “Over the Border.”

I soon realised I was meeting the later generations of those immigrant families who had moved south, a little further from the smoggy effects of heavy industry, but still proudly clinging to their roots.

Their parents and grandparents had gone where the work was. They moved in search of better lives, hoping for a just reward for honest hard work. And, looking for better lives, they pinned their hopes on iron and steel, shipbuilding, and bridges, while their faith remained centred on Christ. So, as communities grew, churches were built.

You’ll find nothing but pride in the eyes of a Teessider who tells you they come from Over the Border. That pride becomes passion when they speak of the Old Cathedral or St Pat’s on Cannon Street. Churches built to be at the heart of the communities the people of God established.

And this new St Mary’s Cathedral, is exactly the same. Its existence is proof that we stand on foundations laid by the hard work of those who dreamed of healthier, more prosperous lives for their children and grandchildren.

Yet, we cannot be in this particular Cathedral without recognising it was built in this place in response to the pilgrimage of the local people who were determined to move away from the works and into the suburbs.

And it wasn’t just constructed in a specific location. It was built at a particular time. More than forty years ago, Bishop Harris’s simple pencil drawing gave testament, in five or six freehand lines, to the Universal Church’s evolving self-understanding. Bishop McClean may have wished for a new Cathedral in the newly emerging part of town, but it was Bishop Harris who envisioned this place as a Cathedral of the Second Vatican Council, correctly embracing liturgical reform in both intention and design, and rightly declaring it to be a Cathedral of the People.

But not just any people. It is a Cathedral of the People of this time and place. From the outside you’ll notice the roofline mirrors Roseberry Topping. That is no accident.

This house of God mimics the shape of His creation here, where we live out our Christian lives. That tells us something about who we are. And the fact that it succeeds the Old Cathedral, built to serve our forebears, tells us something too. It is the Cathedral of the People of God and this moment and in this place, planted here to do Him some definite service.

And the picture we must paint is even more expansive and steeped in history.

We cannot be in any of the Cathedrals of Yorkshire without recognising that long before the Diocese of Middlesbrough or, indeed, Leeds or Hallam existed, Margaret Clitherow, Nicholas Postgate, John Fisher, John Rochester, James Walworth, and even William Lacy and Richard Kirkman of what we now call the Diocese of Leeds, together with a whole host of men and women who trod the land we call home, lived through persecution and died for the faith we all share. Many of them executed at the Knavesmire in York.

No wonder Cardinal Hume, at the Dedication of this Cathedral, imagined Blessed Nicholas Postgate wandering down from the moors, walking in, looking around and saying, “It’s not bad. It’s not at all bad.”

We all come from somewhere.

But coming from somewhere is only half the story.

As people of faith, we are all on our way somewhere too. We are God’s pilgrim people.

Of course, this place is a Cathedral because it is the home of the Bishop’s seat. Here, he gathers all the people of the diocese together. So, the fact that this is not the only Cathedral in the world reminds us that, when we are here, we relate to the worldwide Church, one local family to another.

Standing at the back of this Cathedral, you cannot help but notice how the benches draw us down towards the altar, and gather us around the Lord’s table, calling us away from daily life into the stillness of prayer and worship as we celebrate the Eucharist together.

And once your eyes settle on the altar and the mystery celebrated there, the great beams lift your gaze upwards towards the skylight and heaven beyond.

Every time we come here, we are reminded that we are all pilgrims on the road. As we move around this land we call home, we live each day in faith that we are heading for our new home in heaven. We must not forget it.

So, there is a paradox in every cathedral. It is built to be permanent, beautiful, and lasting, yet it exists to serve a family, a pilgrim people who never stand still.

In that sense, the people of God in the Old Testament would have understood us well. They moved from place to place seeking pasture for their flocks. At the centre of their camp stood the Tent of Meeting, the place where they encountered God and around which they built their lives.

And when it was time to move, they rolled up the tent and carried it with them.

So it is with us. We cannot roll up bricks and mortar, but we do move. New tents of meeting like this one are established and loved with the same affection as the old ones left behind.

Leaving a beloved church can be painful, but these buildings matter not mainly because of stone, glass, art or architecture, but because here, sacramentally present, God dwells with his people.

So here we are tonight, gathered in this tent of meeting, giving thanks for forty years of this Cathedral and the community that has grown around it.

Certainly, there is much to give thanks for.

And yet none of this matters unless, here in this place, we each encounter Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

It is here, especially in the Eucharist, that we are drawn closer to the Father through the Son.

As the first reading reminds us, God dwells with us: we are His people and He is our God. But to speak like this does not mean that God is our private possession, to be kept safely within this tent, locked away and under control.

Indeed, the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus suffered and died outside the town walls. Gathering in church is not an end in itself, nor is it only for our comfort and solace.

We are called to go outside the tent of meeting. Fed and strengthened here, we go out to encounter Christ again in the people and places we least expect. That is the mission of the Church. That is the whole point of having a tent of meeting in the first place.

It strikes me, then, that we have always innately known that God dwells with us. That conviction has led us to build churches at the heart of the places where we live. Like the people of the Old Testament, we pitch our tents around the Lord. We are His people. He is our God.

And we also know we will be sent out into the world beyond these doors, commissioned to go beyond our own comfort, to seek God in others and help them embrace him as we try to do the same.

After Mass, and before you all rush off to the Priory Social Club, my guess is there will be lots of questions in your conversations:

• Do you remember the Old Cathedral?
• Did you know the roof is shaped like Roseberry Topping?
• Can you name all the Yorkshire Martyrs?
• Were you here when this building was dedicated?

• What do you think about the possibility of three Yorkshire dioceses coming together?