In a recent interview in The Sun, Sister Helen Prejean, the author of the book Dead Man Walking, talked about one of her heroes of faith and forgiveness—Lloyd LeBlanc. Lloyd is the father of David LeBlanc, a 17-year-old who was murdered by Patrick and Eddie Sonnier. When neighbors started harassing Ms. Sonnier for her sons' actions, Lloyd Leblanc came to her house with a basket of fruit. Lloyd told Ms. Sonnier that he was a parent too, and he understood that she wasn't responsible for the murder.

Utterly amazed by this act of forgiveness, the interviewer asked Prejean, "How does a parent do such a thing?" Helen Prejean replied with the following story:

Lloyd told me how the sheriff had brought him to the morgue to identify his son's body. David was a beautiful kid, 17-years-old. He had been shot in the back of the head, and when the sheriff pulled his body out on the cold tray … Lloyd—who was good with his hands and could fix things—looked down at his son and thought, I can't fix this. And he began to pray. He came to the line in the Our Father about forgiving those who trespass against us. "I didn't feel it," he said, "but I knew that was where I had to go." And that is where he went.

Lloyd embodies forgiveness—not just something we can do for others, but forgiveness … that says, I am not going to let this anger and hatred kill me. I'm going to remain kind and loving. [Forgiveness] is a path, not a single act. One's commitment to it has to be renewed every day.