Father Paul Symonds was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List for his tireless community work.  We have been chatting to him to find out how an English priest has ended up becoming such a key figure amid changing times in Ballymena…

Words seemed only capable of falling to the ground, but gestures were becoming powerful symbols and they filled him with hope for the future…

Its 2005 - Harryville in Ballymena: Father Paul Symonds is standing in the grounds of the Church of Our Lady, his ministry base.  He surveys the scene feeling like nothing could have prepared him for this and yet knowing everything had…

Yet another paint bomb attack.  Yet more mess on the church walls.  Yet more fear and intimidation induced.  But a clean-up was underway thanks to Paul’s friend Jeremy Gardiner – a local Presbyterian youth pastor.  He had mobilised a group of people from different denominations across Ballymena to scrub away at the defaced walls.  Love was wiping out hate.

Father Symonds smiles even as he recalls the scene: “It excited me - it was a wonderful offer and the symbolic side of it was so powerful.”  It was surely a hint of changing times in Ballymena, amid which he has played a key role; “All my life I’ve been building bridges” he concedes.

It all seems such a far cry from his upbringing in the south of England, near Windsor. His parents had no connection with church but he attended a nearby Catholic primary school.   “I met the Lord there,” he softly remembers.  This intertwining of spiritual and educational journeys was to culminate in his final year at school during a visit to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  It was here he experienced an intense sensation of God and vocation to the priesthood:  “I felt enveloped in light and warmth, I knew God was calling me, had set me apart…I remember just thanking Him.”

Student days beckoned and Paul Symonds spent that time at St David’s College, Lampeter, part of the University of Wales.  Here he had many Christian friends, some of whom were committed Anglican ordinands and this rekindled his desire to be ordained.  It was at university he became a communicant member of the Catholic Church and after completing his degree began training for ordination and a journey which would take him beyond the UK to Belgium, France and Italy.

The Northern Ireland factor began to emerge for Father Symonds around 1987.  He was working in Italy and had started to get together with another priest friend from Belfast to pray for peace in the province.  But his prayerful intentions took an unexpected twist when he felt God say; “That’s where I want you.”  After pausing to chuckle at this point in his story, Father Symonds puts on his best South African twang to recall the reaction of one of his friends from that part of the world, to this latest development.  “What!  You an Englishman and a priest going to Northern Ireland– that has to be of God!”

It wasn’t until 1989 that Paul Symonds arrived in Northern Ireland:  “I knew this was where I was meant to be.”  And his cross-community vision was at the heart of his ministry, whether that was in Whitehouse, north Belfast or Drumbo at the southern end of the city.  As he sought to forge links across the traditional divide he met with interesting reactions: “On the Catholic side I was warmly welcomed but encountered much indifference to inter-church relations.  I was also warmly welcomed by Protestants – but there I found hostility and fear towards inter-church work.  That was difficult to bear, but it’s all about overcoming in the grace of God.”

All these lessons and many more came into play when Ballymena became his new home and work base in 2003.  His desire to be a stereotype breaker was perhaps here going to be most controversial.  While Ballymena’s heated sectarian tensions were well documented, Father Symonds sensed a real potential for change.  One significant proof of this was an encounter with ex-paramilitary Billy McCaughey at the presidential home of Mary McAleese.  “Something clicked between us,” he recalls and that was to be the first spark in a new friendship.  The former loyalist activist was now behind an initiative ‘Community Voice Transforming Conflict’ which was aimed at getting people talking across the divide.  Paul Symonds loved the idea and gave his backing to it, but it was a more informal, random conversation, one that could never be humanly set up that sticks in his mind….

Again the backdrop was the grounds of the Church of Our Lady in Harryville, in the aftermath of one of the paint bomb attacks.  Billy McCaughey was there as yet another clear-up proceeded.  He began to chat to Paul about God’s forgiveness and how sometimes he felt beyond it because of the messiness of his life: “The irony was this,” Paul says,” – me a Catholic priest assuring this ex-paramilitary, this Protestant, of God’s unmerited grace, in the grounds of a Catholic church!”

As Father Symonds continues to pursue his passion of breaking down religious barriers and bringing churches together in Ballymena he faces many frustrations: “I’m currently very excited about trying to establish a Ballymena forum of Churches to speak with one voice on social issues.  But after sending many emails and making lots of phone calls I haven’t had much response…that’s been disheartening.”  And yet despite the setbacks his vision of increased co-operation between the town’s numerous churches has had breakthrough.  Inter-church alpha courses are now run each year in a restaurant owned by a Christian businessman in the town.  But even more that it’s often with people on the ground, in disadvantaged areas of the town that he has left his mark – giving them time, speaking up for them, loving them…

His dream though goes much further:  “I’d love to see a town where everyone feels comfortable in every part of it.  I feel like most Protestants and Catholics live very narrow lives.  I’d love to see Christians growing in knowledge and trust of each other.  I’m not talking about a uniform church here - but it’s about learning how to rejoice in treasuring each other’s traditions.”  In reflective mode Paul Symonds shares how he finds the liturgical form of Catholic worship helps him connect with God, but often he will take time to dip into perhaps a Presbyterian service, where he enjoys engaging in song and listening to the sermon.

“The vision is Christ on the cross and Christ dying to put us right with God through His resurrection,” he passionately explains.  “It’s not about seeing the other as a rival, but as a brother or sister, without whom I cannot be myself.”

But again the dream goes wider and higher: “I’d love to live in Harryville…in one of those little terraced houses.  I don’t think the time is right, but I’m an optimist…Maybe one day.”