Authors: Lorna Byrne
One lovely sunny day, a Sunday, we had our clean clothes
on and were trying not to get them too dirty. We were playing
with our dolls in this little place in the yard and we were
laughing and joking. I remember feeling the angels talking to
me all of the time and telling me to listen. I thought they meant
that I should listen to them, but that wasn't what they meant
this time. Finally, they touched me to get my attention. I
remember stopping playing and listening. I thought I heard
something, but I wasn't sure. When I asked Josie, she couldn't
hear anything. So we went on playing and the angels again said
'Listen!' I listened again and got a strange feeling – I can't
describe it, it was as if I went into another time and space. I felt
disorientated. As I listened I could hear Josie's father calling for
help very faintly in the distance. Josie, however, couldn't hear
anything.
We were afraid to go down among the wrecked cars, which
were stacked high, because we knew that we were strictly
forbidden from going there, but I decided to go anyway, and
Josie followed me. As I followed an angel down through the
wrecked cars, I remember repeatedly saying 'Please God,
please angels, please let her Da be all right!'
We found Josie's father; a car had fallen on him and there
was blood everywhere, but he was alive. I remember running
off to get help and I think Josie stayed there. I'm not sure where
I ran to: their house or my own. Everyone came running. They
sent us away because we weren't allowed to be there when they
were lifting the car off him, but I remember the ambulance
coming. The hospital, St James's, was only up the road.
Afterwards he was all right, he got better.
I thanked God and the angels that he was all right. Again,
my angels had helped me to help someone.
As I have said before, your angels are there to help you, and as
you start to acknowledge that they may exist, you will start to
feel their touch in your life. Angels have, in fact, been touching
you all along; willing you to realise that they are there. They
want you to know that there is much more to life than there
might seem. We do not live our lives on our own: we may be
in a human body, but each of us has a soul that is connected to
God. Angels are connected to God too; as soon as we call God's
name we empower the angels.
In other words, we empower them to empower us. God has
given us free will and the angels will not overstep that. If we
tell them to go away, if we say we don't want help, then God
and his angels will step to one side. But they will not go away
completely: they will wait somewhere nearby.
Have you ever had an experience when you are heading off
somewhere and you go right instead of left? Deep inside you
knew that you should have gone left, and later you kick
yourself for it. That would have been your angel whispering in
your ear, telling you that you should go left. Angels are all
around us, unseen and waiting to help. However, angels need
to be asked for help. By asking we allow them to help us thus
making the connection stronger between a person and their
angel.
I realise now, after all these years, that I am an interpreter
between angels and man, and as such I am frequently called in
to intercede. While I have a particular role, all of us have the
power to ask the angels to help at any time.
I have often asked the angels for help for my family. Things
weren't easy when I was growing up; by the time I was six,
Mum had three more babies – two girls, Helen and Aoife, and
a boy, Barry – so there were five children. On top of this, Mum
was often unwell and was frequently in hospital. When she
went into hospital, the family was divided up and sent away to
her relatives.
I was four when Emer and I first went to stay with my Aunty
Mary. She lived with her husband and three children not too
far away from where we lived, but although it may not have
been many miles away, to me it was a world apart.When I first
saw their house I thought it was a palace: it seemed enormous
compared to our home. Everything in it was so luxurious and
beautiful and it was warm, whereas our house felt damp and
cold much of the time; here I could run around in my bare feet
on the soft carpets. Mealtimes were incredible – loads of food
served on a beautiful table laid with matching cups and plates
that seemed to be so delicate I was afraid I would break them.
Every meal was like a feast – there was so much food to choose
from. One day I was asked if I would like a fry up for breakfast,
and I couldn't believe what I was given: sausages, fried egg,
rashers, black pudding, tomatoes and toast – all for me!
Nothing was halved or shared like at home. The best thing of
all was the bathroom. I had a bath filled with hot water right
up to the top of the bathtub – I felt like a princess.
This trip was the first time that I realised quite how poor we
were.
While we were staying at Aunt Mary's, Mum's parents came
to visit and I was made to put on my good dress – a grey blue
one with smocking across the front. I always loved wearing
dresses and this was one of my favourites, so I was happy to
put it on. I had only met my grandparents on a few previous
occasions and I was very shy of them. They were both tall and
looked like giants to me. Although they were both big, Granny
was fat too, and she walked with a walking stick because she
had had a stroke some years before.
Sometimes when Mum was well, if the weather was good, we
would go off and have a picnic in the Phoenix Park – an
enormous wide open space on the outskirts of Dublin, with
deer and all kinds of wonderful things. It was about two miles
from home so we could walk there without too much problem.
One Sunday, when I was seven, we all set off. Da pushed a bike
with the picnic on the back carrier and Mum pushed my little
baby brother, Barry, in the pram. Emer and I walked and my
two younger sisters, Helen and Aoife, alternated between
walking and sitting up on the pram.
We had a great picnic of tomato and jam sandwiches and
apples from the next door neighbour's garden and Da boiled
up a billy can and made hot sweet tea for us all. After lunch I
played football with my sisters and then I wandered off on my
own among the big old trees. I loved playing among the trees
there; the energy of certain trees – not all trees – would pull me
towards them. It felt wonderful; a tingling, magic feeling
which drew me towards the tree as if it were a magnet. I used
to play a game with the trees, running around until the energy
of a particular one grabbed me and then I would escape from
it. I could play like this for hours. On this afternoon, though,
my sisters came over and asked me what I was doing. I just said
I was playing: I didn't bother to explain – they wouldn't have
understood.
At the end of the afternoon we were exhausted from all the
running about and were looking forward to getting home and
having supper. However, even before we turned the corner
into the Old Kilmainham road, where our house was, I knew
something was wrong. Two very big angels were walking up
the road towards me and I knew from the way they approached
that something terrible had happened. When they reached me
they each put an arm around me, and as we walked up the road
they told me that the roof of our house had fallen in. I was
shocked.
When we got to the house I was horrified by what I saw. I
couldn't take my eyes off it: a large part of the roof had
collapsed. My Da tried to open the door but he couldn't get it
open, and when he forced it with his shoulder a cloud of dust
came out. Inside nothing was recognisable – it was just rubble.
When the roof collapsed it had brought the ceilings crashing
down. To my child's eyes the house was all broken. I
remember thinking, where are we going to sleep now? We
climbed in over the rubble, and to my little child's legs each bit
of concrete or stone seemed enormous. There was dust
everywhere and everything was broken into smithereens – all
the furniture, all our toys, all mum's precious things. I saw her
crying as she picked up things from the ground and I stood in
shock just watching Mum and Da try to salvage things. I
remember Mum picking up a little dark brown milk jug with a
cream stripe and saying, 'This is all that's left in one piece.'
That jug was all that was left of her wedding presents – she
had so little, and now all she had was gone. I still remember
seeing the tears in her eyes. It made me cry, too, in fact all of
us cried, except my Da. He told us not to cry, that he would
make things all right. Somehow, Mum and Da cleaned things
up a little and Da propped the roof up a bit so we could sleep
there that night, but it was very dangerous. I slept thinking
about the fact that our house had fallen in and wondered, what
will we do now, where will we go?
We were homeless, now, and Da had also lost his livelihood.
Thankfully, my cousin Nettie came to our rescue. She lived in
a big house on her own even though she was hardly more than
a child herself. A year or two earlier, at sixteen, she had
inherited the house when both her parents had died. I don't
know quite how it was agreed, and if we paid rent, but we went
to live with her in her house in Ballymun on the north side of
Dublin City – miles from Old Kilmainham.
At first I felt miserable moving – I loved Old Kilmainham –
but when I got to Ballymun and saw the big garden and the big
rooms I was happy.Most importantly, this house was solid and
I knew it would never fall down. It had three bedrooms
upstairs and, a real luxury, an indoor loo and a bath. Downstairs
there was a lovely long kitchen at the back overlooking
the garden, a front room and Nettie's bedroom, which had
probably originally been a dining room.
The house had a magical garden; no garden since has ever
seemed as big to me.We had so many adventures there. There
was even a hay stack and, when there was a birthday party,
sweets would be hidden in it. When he had time, Da grew
vegetables – rows and rows of vegetables – everything you
could think of, including peas, which we loved to pop, and he
built huge strawberry beds.
At that time there were five children in the family. My
brother Barry was only a baby, and between him and me there
were two girls, Helen and Aoife, and then, of course, Emer, my
older sister. I didn't play much with my brother and sisters; I
only played with them when there was a birthday party or
something like that. I suppose I had different interests to them.
I saw the world with different eyes.
At first my new life was a little lonely, but I soon made new
friends. I got to know the little girl, Rosaleen, who lived on the
other side of the wall along the back of all the gardens. It was
a wonderful big wall that ran the length of the road and Da
built a ladder for us so we could get up on it without
destroying our shoes. It was a great wall for walking – good
and wide so we could move along it safely – and this was how
we travelled from one house to another, or to the fields down
the way. I loved that wall, and all I could see from standing on
top of it.
Rosaleen became my best friend. She lived in a big posh
house at the other side of the wall, about six houses away, and
most of the time we visited each other via the wall, rather than
going the long way around. She came from a large family, too,
but some of her siblings were already grown up and had left
home. I knew her little sister Caroline and her brother
Michael, who was eight years older than her. Rosaleen was tall
and skinny with long dark straight hair and she was full of fun
and laughed a lot. I love spending time with her and her
family, and, in fact, I spent more time with them than with my
own family.
Rosaleen's father was German, I think, and a big strong man
with dark hair which was starting to go grey. He was away on
business a lot of the time, but when he was there he was very
good to Rosaleen and her brother and sister – and to me. On a
Sunday he would buy a little bag of sweets for each of the
children and I was very pleased and proud that he always
included me – he included me in everything. There might only
be six or eight sweets in the bag, but they were gorgeous and
I'd try to make them last as long as possible.
There was another Sunday ritual in Rosaleen's house that I
loved: her mother would read us a story. We'd all go to her
bedroom and sit on the bed and sometimes it would just be
Rosaleen, Caroline and I, and sometimes Michael or one of my
sisters joined us, too. Rosaleen's mother was wonderful at
reading stories, and we would all sit and listen enraptured for
an hour or so before she would send us away. Sometimes the
books were very long and it would take weeks for her to finish
reading it. One of my favourites was
A Secret Garden
by
Frances Hodgson Burnett.
There was a big wooden swing in our garden, which Da
repaired so it went really high. I played on that swing for hours
on end, and while I was sat on it the angels taught me a lot of
simple lessons about life and living. In fact, often while I was
there in body, I was in another world. As I sat there the angels
showed me some wonderful and very magical things.
Sometimes when I was alone on the swing one of the angels
would say, 'Lorna, stretch out your hand, we have something
to show you'. Then the angel would put something tiny in my
hand and, as the little thing touched my palm, the angel would
take away her hand and a light would start to materialise there.
Sometimes this light looked like a little star or a daisy, then
this would start to grow, almost as if it were coming alive. As
it grew and grew it started to glow and a bright yellow light
came from it. The light rose up from my hand and went
upwards, getting brighter all the time until it partially
obscured the sun which allowed me to look directly at the sun
without squinting or hurting my eyes. Then I would see a most
wonderful sight reflected back, as if it were a mirror – a
beautiful face, like a human face, smiling down at me.
The first time this happened the angels told me that this was
the Queen of the Angels. They liked to use terms that made
sense to me as a child: they reminded me of the fairy tales I
knew and that the Queen was like a mother, just as my mother
was like the Queen of my family. The angels explained that
this person was the Queen of the angels, the mother of the
universe, the mother of creation, the mother of all of the
angels. All of a sudden, the yellow orb in which I had seen the
face exploded into millions of little pieces and fell like golden
streamers coming from the sun.
Over the years the angels have regularly given me this gift,
even as an adult, particularly when I've been in need of some
reassurance.
The move to Ballymun, of course, also meant a new school.
My three sisters and I went to a small national school for boys
and girls; more than half an hour's walk from home. My sisters
took the bus, but I preferred to walk most of the time. On my
way to school I had to walk fast and keep hurrying, otherwise
I'd be late and get into trouble, but coming home I could take
my time.
Located on the same piece of ground was the school which
was on one side; the church, which was in the middle and the
parish hall, which was on the other side. There were only three
classrooms in the school, which wasn't enough, so the parish
hall next door was used for two classes. For my first year there
I was in the hall; the two classes were held at either end of the
hall, with no wall between them. Mr Jones was my teacher and
he treated me very badly; as far as he was concerned I was a
dummy and it really irritated him that he had to have a child
like me in his class.
One morning, the angels told me that something special
would happen at school that day which would make me feel
happy. The angels were right, as always: what happened did
make me happy at the time, and it still does when I think about
it! We were doing Irish and Mr Jones announced a one question
quiz with a prize of half a crown for the child who got
it right. He wanted to know what the Irish word 'crann' meant
in English, so he asked each child in turn, starting over on the
right – he sat me on my own across to the left. He went
through the whole class, one by one, and no child knew the
answer. As usual, he didn't ask me. Sitting in my desk all on
my own, I knew that I knew the answer. I was all excited, I
couldn't stop fidgeting in my seat, I wanted to jump up and
shout the answer at him. The angels had a hard time holding
me still. 'Angels, tell him to look my way, please, tell him to
ask me.' I was nearly crying with excitement.
'Don't worry, Lorna,' they said, 'he will ask you.'
Mr Jones was shocked at his class and kept saying, 'Come
on! What's wrong with you? This is easy!' I laugh when I
remember the expression on his face – his eyes getting bigger,
his face redder. He was dumbfounded. He asked the last child
but me and then announced, 'Well! It looks like no one has
won the half crown.'
Hosus was standing right beside Mr Jones the whole time,
pointing in my direction, but of course he couldn't see him. I
wanted to shout at Hosus to grab the teacher by the hand and
bring him over to me. The whole class stayed silent, not a child
made a sound. Despite the angels' assurances it looked as if Mr
Jones wasn't going to ask me after all. He walked towards his
desk. Still there was complete silence in the room. Suddenly,
Hosus and Mr Jones's guardian angel took him gently by the
arm, turned him around and led him over in my direction, all
the time whispering in his ear. 'I know there is no point,' he
said, 'but I'll ask anyway!'
So he did ask, and in a confident and happy voice I said, 'It
means "tree".'
His face dropped. It was the right answer. The whole class
laughed and clapped, they were delighted. He had to give me
that half crown, and I'll always remember him putting it into
my hand as I said thank you.
I had never had so much money of my own before – a whole
half crown.
Most children hurried home after school, but I preferred to
take it slowly and spend time on my own playing with the
angels. Walking home from school could take me hours; I
would walk along the big bank at the side of the lane so I could
look over the hedge on the far side into the fields and the
grounds of the big house that was there. Sometimes I would
skip along the bank with the angels and we would laugh and
joke with each other. Sometimes they would show me things;
they would pull back the overgrowth and let me see a hole in
the bank with a wasps' nest in it, and because it was the angels
who were pulling back the camouflage, they were able to do it
without disturbing the wasps, so I could stand there for ages
watching the insects without fear of being stung. I remember
going back to look for that wasps' nest later, only to discover
that adults had found it and poisoned the wasps, which made
me sad.
The angels also often used to show me the cattle in the field
beyond the bank. They taught me to look at things differently
to the way others do; I wouldn't just glance at a cow, I would
really look to see everything about it: every line, every little
bump. The angels would make each detail glow or stand out
more than normal, so that I could really notice it. The angels
would also allow me to see into animals' eyes; even if they were
a long way away I could still see deep into those eyes. I was
being allowed to see things that most people never see. It was
fascinating. I could see all the light and energy and things that
were going on in and around the animal; sometimes it looked
as if there were balls of light dancing round the animals, other
times the energy would be flashing on and off. I would see a
calf in a cow's belly; sometimes I could hardly make it out, and
then the angels would tell me to look more carefully and I'd see
it. Sometimes, being honest, the calf looked like something all
gooey and moving – a bit like the jam my mother used to
make.
I was so fascinated by everything the angels showed me
outside school, it's no wonder I had little time for what was
going on in the classroom. When the angels explained something
to me as a child I would think I understood their answer
fully, but as I grew older I began to get a deeper understanding
of what they meant.
One of my friends at school was Marian, although I never
saw her outside of school. Whenever we left the hall to go to
the school building or to the church she would insist on
walking beside me. Even if the teachers paired her with
another girl, she would find a way of walking beside me and
she always wanted to ask questions. She used to wonder how
I knew so much, but I couldn't tell her about my angelic
teachers. One day, as we were walking through the playground
towards the church, she asked me to tell her about God. I was
so surprised I could hardly breathe. I looked at her and didn't
know what to say. Eventually I said, 'The teachers and priest
tell us about God, so why are you asking me?' I was trying to
get out of giving an answer, but she insisted 'I want you to tell
me.'
So I started to tell her about God. 'Do you see the finch, that
beautiful finch with all those golden colours and yellows and
blues? That bird is like God. Really look at that bird and see its
beauty and perfection. You are like the bird; you are beautiful,
because you are like God. If that bird falls and hurts itself it
won't feel all the pain of that fall, because God will feel 99 per
cent of it. God feels everything that happens to each and every
bird and it is the same with us – when something happens that
would hurt us, we only feel a fraction of it. God feels the rest
and takes it away.'
I know these weren't my words – I was too young for words
of wisdom like this – they were words I was given by God or
the angels to help to explain to Marian about God.
I loved that church; sometimes I'd be a bit late for school
because I would slip into the church before I would go into
class – it was something that I loved to do. The church was
always empty. I love churches – they are full of angels. There
might only be a few people in the church, but there is always a
great hustle and bustle amongst the angels there. People don't
realise how many angels there are in a church; the angels are
there praising God and waiting for God's people to come and
join them, but frequently no one does. At Mass on a Sunday the
place is packed with angels: guardian angels with every person,
angels standing around the priest at the altar and lots more
angels which God sends down. Churches are very powerful
places; sometimes when I see someone in the church and see all
the angels and light around them, I pray for them: 'Please let
that person hear their angel today and in some way come into
contact with their angel, and through him with God.'