Tie Goes to the Runner

 

Learning to pray for our unbeloved dead

04/01/2026

John 13:21-33, 36-38 Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, "Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me." The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus' side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant. He leaned back against Jesus' chest and said to him, "Master, who is it?" Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it." So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do quickly." When he had left, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, 'Where I go you cannot come,' so now I say it to you." Simon Peter said to him, "Master, where are you going?" Jesus answered him, "Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, though you will follow later." Peter said to him, "Master, why can I not follow you now?  I will lay down my life for you." Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me? Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times."

In all your spare time you should someday read an enlightening little book by Hans Urs Von Balthasar called “Dare We Hope ‘That All Men Be Saved’?” Even if you don’t fully understand his theology – or entirely disagree with it – you may enjoy his editorial comments.

For example, he writes about how both liberals and conservatives despise him: “So be it; if I have been cast aside as a hopeless conservative by the tribe of the left, then I know what sort of dung-heap I have been dumped upon by the right. But back to matters of substance” (20). That is, it is when both the right and left castigate you that you are closest to Christ.

The gist of Balthasar’s book is that we can truly hope that all people be saved, even if in the end some people are not saved. That sounds contradictory, but it’s not. In other words, the future and final state of affairs – who ends up in heaven and who (if anyone) falls into hell – does not need to blunt the edge of our hope for all men to be saved. We can even translate that hope into prayer, not matter how wretched the sinner.

Have you noticed how we offer every Mass for a particular intention? I make a point to mention explicitly that intention during the Prayers of the Faithful, or more simply, the Petitions. Often, though not always, we pray for our beloved dead. And that is certainly a holy and pious practice. But that does not preclude us praying for our unbeloved dead, that is, people we consider our enemies on earth, people who may not make it to heaven.

When you think about it, who needs our prayers the most: clearly our foes more than our friends. And not only because our prayers may help them, but mainly because our prayers help us. That is, when we pray for our enemies, we love our enemies as Jesus taught us. In other words, when we pray for our “unbeloved dead” our hearts soften toward them, and then maybe we have hope that we will be saved.

Von Balthasar’s basic stance toward who will be saved and who will be lost is essentially to plead ignorance, or as we say, “to plead the fifth amendment.” He does not come down on the side of either salvation or condemnation. That is, he lists the many scriptural passages that teach the certainty of hell and the probability that many end up there.

But he also marshals an impressive list of Scriptures that teach how much God desires to save all men. That was Jesus’ deepest desire on the Cross, as we heard at Mass a few days ago Jesus say: “When I am lifted up I will draw all men to myself” in Jn 12:32. Then Balthasar concludes: “What we have here are two series of statements that, in the end, because we are under judgment, we neither can nor may bring into synthesis” (21).

In baseball there’s a curious rule called “tie goes to the runner,” meaning if it’s not clear if the runner was safe or out at first base, then he is safe. Similarly, the Scripture passages about salvation and damnation are sort of “tied” in the sense of how many we can list on both sides of the ledger. And so we may hope that all the runners – that is all humanity – will be saved.

In the gospel today we see another example of how the tie goes to the runner. The beloved disciple John asks Jesus who will betray him. And Jesus says watch for the signal of to whom I will give the morsel of bread. But the gesture of sharing bread is not only a sign of who will betray Jesus, but also a gesture of love, like when a bride and groom feed each other a piece of wedding cake. In other words, the morsel of bread is not only an indication of Judas, it was also an invitation to Judas to think again about his course of action.

And perhaps it was also a last ditch effort by Jesus that even after the betrayal Judas might remember our Lord’s love and not despair – that is, repent like Peter did after his betrayal. Even though Jesus knew what Judas planned to do – he knows everything – he still held out hope that Judas might repent in the end and be saved. When Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday, he did not die only for our beloved dead, but also for our unbeloved dead, like Judas.

It is interesting, and highly instructive, that the Church has never declared that any individual person by name is in hell, not even Judas. We declare certain people by name are in heaven, the saints, because their miracles are proof of their presence in Paradise. But we have no rock-solid proof that anyone, not even Judas Iscariot, is in eternal hell. We have a lot of Scripture he might be, and we have an equal number of Scripture he might not be. And if that’s the case, “the tie goes to the runner.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!