December 27

Lambert McKenna, Sára Salkaházi, and The Flushing Remonstrance

Author

David Barnhart
December 27, 2025

St. Columcille’s House, Kells, Ireland, 2022. Own photo.

Today marks the death, in 1956, of Lambert McKenna, Irish priest who, when not collecting Celtic literature, wrote critically about how capitalism was affecting the poor, especially women and children. 

Today also marks the martyrdom, in 1944, of Sára Salkaházi, a Hungarian religious sister who, working with the Sisters of Social Service, sheltered hundreds of Jews from the Gestapo. 

Today is also the day, in 1657, that people in Flushing, New Netherland (today’s Queens, New York), petitioned for an exemption to a ban on Quaker worship. Called “The Flushing Remonstrance,” it was an early appeal to freedom of religion and freedom of conscience in the colonies.

Reflection: 

Sára Salkaházi wrote: 

“What did Elisha do? First he prayed, than he warmed the dead boy’s body with the warmth of his own. (I too, am called) to pray and work, to impact others “with the warmth of my own body”, that is, with my life and my example! To realize this, I need constantly to awaken the love of Christ in my heart. It is only this love that makes me warm and makes an impact on the outside world.“

Lambert McKenna wrote:

"The wealthy few now rule the world. They have done so before, but never precisely in virtue of their wealth. They were patriarchs, patricians, chieftains of clans, feudal nobles acknowledging responsibilities and bearing heavy burdens. Today wealth making no sacrifices for the public good, rules in its own right, and exercises a more despotic sway than any form of authority hitherto known.

…It does not, as the kings of old, dwell in castles that can be stormed by an angry people. On the contrary it stands as the embodiment of legality, order, security, peace—even of popular will. Capitalism, using the work of the labouring classes, has vastly increased the wealth of the world; yet it strives to prevent these labouring classes from benefiting by this increase. It is constantly drawing up into itself that wealth and diverting it from useful purposes."

Prayer: God, in this world full of injustice, you call us to be agents of peace and restorative justice, rooted in love that is just as much concerned with physical bodies as with souls and minds. Thank you for your incarnate love. Amen.