From time to time, things we have done that we should not have done are brought to our attention. I’m not talking about things we remember; I’m talking about things we don’t.

These are things that we not only have no memory of, but also cannot truly fathom a response for. And when we are at a loss for the transgression, it is hard to summon the right perspective. It is rather like being asked to remember someone else’s life and to feel sorry for it; an amnesiac’s dilemma.

These things often come by way of a confession. These are old grudges held and old hatchets dug up from their supposed burying place. Someone feels the need to unburden himself about something that was said or not said, done or not done.

And when the occasion for the telling involves anger, it is most often meant to let you know just how rotten you are. Your failure to remember the slight is yet more evidence of your degradation; i.e., any decent person would have remembered such a thing.

Whatever the impetus, the resurrection is most often intended to clear the air—to set things right once and for all—to get it all out in the open.

I’m taking as a given that these old accusations are valid ones. I set aside the forgotten things that are petty and misremembered and blown out of proportion. I’m talking about the things that were really bad and give the accuser a valid point.

Now, the first defense in such situations is to say that such a thing never happened. The second defense may be along the lines of: “even if it did happen, it can’t be like you’re saying; and besides, there was probably a very good reason why I acted that way.”

It’s true that much of this business probably should never come to light, as it never really helps much, even if it’s intended to. Feelings are hurt all over again and the air is darker, not clearer. The momentary pleasure of telling doesn’t even make the anger go away; grudges remain whether they’re hidden or not. They rarely fade with sunshine.

Still, the point of this reflection is not about forgiveness. It should be offered, of course, and that is hard to do, but such battles are those of every man and much guidance has been suggested on how to do it.

No, I’m not interested in forgiveness, but in forgetfulness. I’m interested in our ability to have no idea what we’ve done at a particular time that was so wrong; worse yet, our ability to have no recollection of it. For at some point, one has to consider that these things do kind of sound like us.

Even if the occasion is not recalled, the general operation rings a bell.

And if that is so, then how many other things lie out there like land mines and time bombs waiting to go off? Further, how many hidden things will never come to light, but will lie deep within the fertile soil of some other person’s memory, but never come within our own?

It would seem a given that you cannot confess and repent what you haven’t even realized you’ve done. And it would seem an object lesson to say that you must be more mindful of what you do, so that you can in fact realize the weight of your actions.

Still, once the phenomenon is acknowledged—that is, that there are offenses, perhaps many, that you have no memory of—then is there a way to atone? How essential is recollection of the particulars when there is an admission of common fault?

I suppose that’s the point of the general confessions in the old mass, which have been reintroduced lately in the new translation just released in Advent. It’s the one that’s repeated in unison—“through my fault, my fault, through my most grievous fault” (whereupon the confessors strike their breasts three times).

We clearly remember certain things we’ve done and can bear these in mind at the repetition of these phrases. But we also know that as we are characteristically wrongdoers, part of that wrongdoing comes out in a general insensitivity to what we have brought to pass. We are callous giants and heedless of the mayhem that we’ve left in our wakes.

Is that also the reason why the general confessions are said in unison, almost as a means of confessing to each other the things we don’t remember, but know that we did? Each to his right could have offended any of those to his left, and they him. Undoubtedly, that is the case.

It’s true that scrupulosity, which is the hyper-sensitivity to imagined faults, is its own problem. People can claim too much. But it’s also true that when we confess our remembered and unremembered sins, we claim a part of the larger human error as our own.

We have no memory of our path from Eden, of our friendship with the old serpent and our complicity with his lies, but we know it all sounds like us.

Though blind to that past, we can still see it and rightly call it our own.