A BLACK Liverpool mum gently smiled out of my telly last week and forgave her son's killer.

Remember Gordon Wilson's incredible forgiveness line after the IRA blew up his daughter in Enniskillen. "I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge."

How could they do that?

A trivial scenario involving a thief and conman helped me glimpse an answer recently.

Eddie burgled my vicarage after my wife's funeral. From remand prison, he pleaded for forgiveness.

I wrote back granting it and inviting him to call round when he got out, suggesting that this time he use the door bell.

He duly arrived with his lovely family, and then cleverly conned me out of a grand.

Did I still forgive him, asked the reporter covering his trial?

It seemed ridiculous to say "yes". Yet I genuinely had no alternative.

Nor did the Christian parents who'd lost their kids to killers. God has forgiven us. We should forgive others.

Remember the One the human race nailed to a cross, and the killers delightedly watched him die in excruciating agony.

"Father, forgive them," croaked the dying Christ, "for they know not what they do."

Jesus forgave. He requires his followers to go and do likewise.

But how many times? demanded his disciples. "Seventy times seven" replied the master.

Or, as the Lord's Prayer, reminds us, "forgive us our sins (but only) as we forgive those who sin against us."