Love From Heaven

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 Lorna Byrne

Love From Heaven

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 First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Coronet
An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Lorna Byrne 2014

The right of Lorna Byrne to be identified as the Author of the Work

has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
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ISBN 978 1 444 78632 3

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 For All Of You
With Love

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 Contents

One We are all pure love 1

Two Learning to love yourself again 19
Three The ties of brotherly and
sisterly love 39
Four Friendship is love 59
Five Love of strangers 83
Six Loving your parents as people
in their own right 93
Seven Love of animals 113
Eight Love of children 129
Nine Making the conscious decision
to love your own life 138
Ten Love of our planet 158
Eleven Our unrealistic expectations of 
romantic love 172
Twelve Loving your enemies and those
you find hard to love 191
Thirteen Love from Heaven 215

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 chapter one

We are all pure love

We are all pure love. But most of us

have locked away this love within ourselves and
don’t let it out. This love remains there, though.
We can lock love away but we cannot destroy it,
and we always have the potential to release
it. We release it first by learning to love ourselves
again. If we are unable to love ourselves, we
are unable to love another.
Love is the most powerful force in the world;
it comes from our soul, it comes from heaven.

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 It’s love that brings all the joy and happiness
into our lives; it’s love that helps to steer us in
the right direction and drives us forward,
regardless of what is going on in our lives; it’s
love that makes living worthwhile.
Love is like the sun; it’s our life force, it
transcends everything. And yet the angels keep
showing me how little love most people feel for
themselves and, as a result, how little love there
really is in our lives – and how much more there
could be. The state of our world today is
evidence of this absence of love.
People often think that love should be all
sweetness and light – but the truth is, love
frequently hurts. When we open ourselves to
love, we also open ourselves up to being hurt.
So many of us have learnt from the time we
are children to harden ourselves, to lock away
our love for fear of being hurt. In locking away
this love we make ourselves and our world much
more cold-hearted, selfish and sadder. In
locking love away deep within us, we diminish
our humanity.
Ever since I was a young child, the angels

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 have been teaching me about love and helping
me to see the force of love physically.
I see angels all the time. I cannot remember
any time when I have not seen them. From the
very moment I opened my eyes after I was born
they were there – even though I did not know
they were angels. I see them physically as
clearly as I see my daughter sitting across the
dinner table from me. There has never been a
day when I haven’t seen angels. Angels are my
best friends, my companions and my teachers.
The first time that I was conscious of the
angels teaching me about love was when I was
about five years old. I was sitting at the kitchen
table at home in Old Kilmainham, Dublin,
with my mum and da, and my sisters. There
was a visitor there, and this person had
brought a wonderful treat: a chocolate cake.
We children were so excited, as my parents
could rarely afford to buy a cake. The table
was surrounded by angels. One of the angels
told me to watch my father carefully. I did as
I was told. As I looked, I started to notice
what appeared to be a soft mist coming gently

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 from my father. It seemed to come from every
pore of his being, from his whole body, and
moved in the direction of my mother. I looked
over at Mum and realised that there was a
similar mist coming from her. The two mists
touched and intertwined. The mist had no
colour, but sparkled in the way ice would in
the sunshine.
This was the first time I was aware of physic­
ally seeing the force of love, and I wouldn’t
have seen it without the angels’ help.
My da was cutting the cake and started to
serve me first but my mum stopped him, saying
sharply that my sister should get the first slice.
My da looked up as if stung and the mist
seemed to pull back towards him. The love
force I had seen between them had disappeared.
The angels told me that my mum’s angry
comment had made him pull back his love and
lock it away. Da was hurt and confused because
he hadn’t consciously chosen one child over
another; he was serving me because I was nearer
to him than my sister.
This was to be the first of many times I would

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 see this love force. I see it when someone is
thinking loving thoughts about someone or
something. I don’t see it with everyone or all
the time. To be honest, I don’t see it in the
abundance I would like. I probably see it with
one out of every twenty people that I come
across on a normal day.
I am still struggling to describe further what
this love force looks like. It’s not a bit like an
aura or energy, or a ray of light. It’s sometimes
completely different, yet quite visible to me.
The angels haven’t just taught me to see
the force of love, they have also taught me to
see and measure its intensity – like different
temperatures.

Love is the most powerful

force in the world.

Angels have taught me everything I know.

Angel Michael and Angel Hosus are probably
the angels who have taught me the most – apart
from my guardian angel who I am not allowed
to talk about. I first met Angel Michael when

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 I was a very young child. He almost always
gives me the appearance of a handsome man.
I first met Angel Hosus around the time that I
first saw the physical force of love. He gives the
appearance of an old-fashioned schoolteacher
with a gown and a funny-shaped hat. He is full
of knowledge and wisdom and is great at
cheering me up and giving me confidence. He
started all those years ago in school when I
struggled because of my dyslexia and felt very
stupid, and he helps me now when I’m writing
and doing interviews.
There is another angel whose name I don’t
know and who I have never even seen properly
who is around me when I am being taught
about love. This angel was there in the kitchen
when I saw the love between my mother and
father, and is here with me now as I write about
the love force. The angel always seems to be to
my right, slightly behind me and out of my
line of vision; it’s as if I am not allowed to see
any more of it. I have no idea why. I have asked
about this angel but been told no more about
it. I think of it as a special type of teacher-angel

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 sent to help me understand more about love so
that I can share it with you.
After the angel with no name had shown
me how to physically see the force of love, it
started teaching me to measure its intensity.
As I was only six or seven at the time, this
angel taught me using my fingers. When it
wanted to indicate that what I was seeing was
love force of an intensity of three, it would
bend down two fingers on my hand, to leave
three fingers up. It stood behind me doing
this, and whenever I tried to turn around to
look at the angel I seemed to be physically
incapable of doing so, as if some force was
stopping me.
If I had learnt to measure love force as an
adult, I think the angel might have taught
me differently. But this is the way I learnt it,
so this is how I still measure intensity of love
today.
Most love that I see I measure as being between
1 and 10, but occasionally I am privileged to
be shown love that is completely off this scale;
I think of it as 100. This number – 100 – was

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 the biggest number I could comprehend as a
child when the angel with no name was teaching
me about this.
An intensity of love of 100 is so beautiful to
see. It reflects the purity of the love coming
from the person. It’s so hard to describe,
though; it’s crystal clear and full of a warm
light and the force of love shines all around the
person and out from them.
It gives me enormous joy when I see love of
this intensity. It overwhelms me emotionally
and leaves me hardly able to speak. It touches
me deeply and stirs the love up within myself.
I can feel the effects of it weeks later.
I have no way of knowing whether I feel
the force of love differently to others. The angels
have told me that everyone has the potential
to feel love. It may be, though, that because
the angels have made me very conscious of
love, and have taught me how to see it
physically, that I am more sensitive to feeling
it than others.
The angels have also told me that God has
allowed me to see the force of love so that I

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 can help to stir up the love that is within all
of us.
We are all born pure love. As a baby in our
mother’s womb, we all love unconditionally.
Every one of us, regardless of whether we are
wanted, or whether our mums have an easy
pregnancy or labour, glow with pure love when
we are born. As newborn babies, we know we
are perfect and deserving of love and feel
pure love for ourselves and everyone around us.
Almost immediately, though, this love force
begins to diminish. Even with the most loving
mother and father, the baby starts to feel the
coldness and lack of love in our world and
starts to protect itself by locking away this love
inside itself.
The angel with no name taught me to see
what it looks like physically when we lock
away our love. I was about eight when I was
taught this. We were living in our cousin’s
house in Ballymun after the roof of the house
in Old Kilmainham had collapsed. It was a
beautiful spring day and I was walking back
alone from the shops, having bought some

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 milk for my mother. The angel with no name
appeared beside me. There was a group of
young boys playing on the street and the angel
pointed out a scrawny boy of about five in
shorts with a shirt hanging out and told me
to look at him carefully. As I did, the boy
turned to look in my direction. The angel
allowed me to see what looked like a band
around the boy’s body at heart level. It’s hard
to describe; it was transparent, like an ice
sheet, but hard and cold.
It was as if the love inside him was locked
away so that he was not open to being hurt again.
The angel asked me if I could I feel anything.
I could feel the boy’s hurt and pain, and I could
also feel the love that wasn’t being allowed out.
It tore me apart.
I wanted to give him a hug; I walked towards
him and, as I got closer, I could see tears in his
eyes. I said ‘hello’ and reached out to him, but
as I did he turned away.
The angel told me that he had locked away
his love and was afraid of my affection, or
anyone else’s. I was sorry I had no sweets in my

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 pocket that I could give him. I asked the angel,
in the way an eight-year-old would, whether a
sweet would help. I couldn’t see the angel’s face
– I have never seen it – but I felt as if it was
smiling as it replied that kindness, a loving
gesture, from a stranger, or from anyone, could
help him to unlock some of this love.
Sometimes unconsciously we unlock some
of our love. When we hear of a tragedy in
another part of the world we may be engulfed
by a feeling of enormous sadness and compas-
sion. We don’t know the people affected, but
we feel for them. We are touched. The love
within us is stirred up and we allow some of
it out.
I remember coming across a woman on the
street just after the news broke of the 2004
tsunami in South East Asia. I hadn’t yet heard
about the disaster so I was astonished by the
strength of the love I was seeing coming from
her, and I didn’t know what had caused it. It was
like a whirlwind of love coming from every part
of her being. It was as if the defences that she
had built around herself to protect her from

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 the pain of love had been blown away by the
strength of the emotions and love she was feeling.
We feel love through our emotions. And
emotions stir us up, helping us to release the
love inside us that we may be trying to keep in
check. Many of us do our best to stop love
from being stirred up inside us, to stop ourselves
from feeling this compassion. We decide that
if an event doesn’t affect us personally, we
shouldn’t be moved by it – that it doesn’t
affect our lives. But it does. When we don’t let
ourselves feel emotions such as compassion
and love for our fellow human beings, even
strangers, we become less human and this
allows emotions such as hate and anger to
flourish. We become colder individuals, even
to those who we do care for.
We also forget to care for and love ourselves.
The angels tell me that loving ourselves is very
important for our happiness. I am shown that
most people don’t love themselves enough. It’s
as if we have forgotten the importance of loving
ourselves.
Again, the angel with no name who has taught

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 me so much about love taught me how to
recognise the force of love when it is directed
towards loving one’s self. To be honest, I
didn’t often see it in my own immediate family
while growing up. The first time I remember
seeing it was when I was seven or eight. I
remember going to a Christmas party in my
granny’s house. There were lots of people
there. The angel with no name told me to
look into the sitting room. My Uncle Peter
was sitting there perched on the arm of a big
comfortable chair. As I watched I could see
the force of love emerging from him, coming
forward, and then moving back towards him
like a wave. I could see it was the love force,
the same as I had seen between my mum and
my da, but it was as if he was being showered
with the love that was coming from within.
He looked so happy in himself; happy just
to be.
His love for himself was so attractive; I
wanted to be with him. At that moment he saw
me and called me over. I sat happily on his knee
and I could feel the comfort and consolation

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 of his own love for himself as well as seeing it.
Every so often it would make me giggle, and
Uncle Peter would look at me inquisitively
as if wondering what this funny little child was
thinking.
Love, for ourselves or another, helps us to
connect more deeply with our own spirituality,
with our soul. If the only thing you take out
of this book is to learn to love yourself more,
it will make a big difference to your life, and
the lives of people around you. In the next
chapter I’m going to tell you a lot more about
why this is so important, and how you can love
yourself more.

Each and every one of us human beings, regard-

less of religion or beliefs, has a soul. God loves
us all so much that he has given each of us a
little speck of himself. This speck of the light
of God is our soul. We connect more deeply
with our soul when we open ourselves up to
love.
Love is love; it’s always the same, but the
angel with no name has shown me that many

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 people have a very narrow view of love – they
simply see it as something between a couple,
or within a family. I meet so many people
who are crying out for love, but they think
that the only way to get this love is through
a romance, and because of this they are failing
to see the love that is already in their lives.
They fail to recognise that there are many
different ways in which we can love.
One day, when I was about eleven, I was
out in the old coach houses at the back of
the big hostel where my granny worked in
County Clare. The angel with no name came
and told me to follow my granddad quietly
so I wouldn’t be seen. My granddad was a
quiet man who had lost a leg in the fight
for Irish Independence and, as a result, had
difficulty walking. I followed quietly as he
walked into one of the sheds and peeked
inside. I could see love pouring from my
grandfather, even as I saw a look of shock
and distress on his face. At the same time I
was wondering what was going on.
I watched as he took a white handkerchief

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 out of his pocket and, with great difficulty, leaned
down towards the ground.
When I saw what he had picked up I under-
stood what had happened. In the handkerchief
were two tiny birds – baby swallows. There was
a swallows’ nest high up on the wall and
somehow, I have no idea how, these two little
birds had fallen out.
To see the look of love on my grandfather’s
face, and the force of love pouring from him
towards them, moved me so much. The angel
with no name beside me said, ‘This is love.
He has locked away so much love because of
how hard his life has been.’ I thought with
sadness of his two children who had, I had
been told, died tragically and young. ‘This
love he feels for these birds is the same as the
love you saw your parents show each other.
The sadness is that your grandfather finds it
easier to show love to a bird than to his
family.’
My grandfather moved towards the shed door
with difficulty, holding his stick in one hand and
the two little birds carefully cradled in the other.

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 When I walked into the kitchen shortly after
this, I found my grandfather had lovingly put
the little birds in a box to keep them safe and
was feeding them warm milk through a little
dropper. He cared for the birds in this way for
some weeks, sometimes allowing me to help to
feed them, before the birds were strong enough
to look after themselves and he let them go
free.
The angel with no name has told me that
love is love, but that we can love in so many
different ways. We all have pure love inside us.
We were full of love as a newborn baby and,
no matter what has happened to us since then,
it is still there. Regardless of what life has
thrown at us or what we have done to others,
the love within us does not diminish. But we
all lock much, or all, of this love away deep
within us. We need to learn again how to let
it out.
Feeling love for anything helps us to stir up
that love within us, and allows us to release
more of it. Love is stirred up through personal
experience of love: feeling it, thinking loving

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 thoughts, or seeing it. We learn to love from
each other.
The angels have told me that we can all learn
to love more frequently, and with a greater
intensity. This is why I have written this book.

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