The Pontifical Beda College in Rome where I am Rector prepares older men for priestly ordination. One privilege of my position is to receive invitations to attend the ordinations of our students in countries that otherwise I might never have been able to visit. I am not able to accept them all, but I go when I can. In 2000, for example, I went to Moscow.

During my visit, the man who had been ordained, Father Igor Chabanov, took me to St Petersburg and, while there, we went to the Hermitage. After several hours exploring its treasures, and overwhelmed by the splendour of what we had seen, we decided it was time to leave. Looking for the way out, however, we found ourselves in the Rembrandt Room, transfixed, gazing at Rembrandt's depiction of the return of the Prodigal Son, that classic parable of forgiveness that many people will hear once again in church this weekend. It was some time before we managed to move on.

This summer I attended an ordination in Bangalore. It was my first visit to India and, as in Russia, I was received with warm hospitality. Once again the man who had been ordained, Father Christopher Vimalraj, wanted me to travel. He took me to Delhi and I went armed with William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal. I had saved it for the occasion and was unexpectedly privileged to reflect on the events it relates at the evening Mass in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart on the Sunday I was there. Those events had occurred 150 years earlier.

In 1857 there was an uprising in the British Army in India on an unprecedented scale. The British speak of it as the Indian Mutiny, but in India it is known as the First War of Independence. Hindu sepoys and Muslim jihadis, provoked by British insensitivity that would cause them to violate their religious practice and beliefs, formed an alliance and rose up. In Delhi they massacred Christian men, women, and children, and all those they could lay their hands on who, they judged, had collaborated with the Christians. They slew them without mercy.

Some months later the British Army had regrouped and it returned. Then, when the moment came, it took its revenge. In spite of their Christian origin, the soldiers slaughtered without mercy. They killed not only those who opposed them, but many of the innocent citizens of Delhi as well, those who in the chaos that followed the uprising had looked forward more and more to their return. It is a sickening episode, expertly narrated by Dalrymple, and we recoil from the savagery. We may also comfort ourselves with the thought that it was all a long time ago and, although there have been more recent horrors and some are still taking place, these events are far removed from us. Is it really so?

You go to the cinema to relax. You don’t want to watch anything too demanding; something such as The Bourne Ultimatum would be ideal. At some stage the hero is at the mercy of the villain, about to be killed, when he breaks free and does the killing himself. How do we feel? Often we feel thrilled.

There is no need to be too pompous; we should keep a sense of proportion; I enjoyed the Bourne film myself. All the same, I wonder whether that thrill is not triggered by our instinct for revenge. When bad things happen, we want to get our own back. But revenge breeds retaliation. The cycle continues. How can we break it?

The father, who welcomes his prodigal younger son and then goes out to plead with the self-righteous older brother, has been doubly wronged, but he is not bothered about that. He is not seeking revenge. He wants to be reconciled with them and is prepared to pay the price. He will be the victim of their selfishness and blindness to win them back. This father, who reveals to us God as Father, is also an example for us. Can we learn to set more store by reconciliation than revenge?

Monsignor Roderick Strange is the Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome.