Sister Edith Gonzalez, 69

By Florida Catholic staff - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | �Take care of my poor.� Those were the parting words of Sister Edith Gonzalez whenever she visited the many people whose lives she touched: the developmentally disabled, refugees, children, AIDS patients, the uninsured in need of health care, and the poor in Guatemala.

�Her life and death gave witness to her love for Christ's poor,� said her friend and fellow Sister of St. Joseph, Sister Elizabeth Worley, archdiocesan chancellor for administration. �Whether walking the halls of the school or the hospital or the dirt roads of Guatemala, it was Sister�s total reliance on Divine Providence and her love for Christ that impelled her to faithful service.�

Sister Edith died March 15 at age 69 after a battle with cancer. A funeral Mass will be celebrated Tuesday, March 19, feast of St. Joseph, at 1 p.m. at St. John Neumann Church, 12125 S.W. 107 Ave., Miami. Burial will be in San Lorenzo Cemetery in St. Augustine on Thursday, March 21, following Mass at the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

Sister Edith was born Sept. 20, 1943 in Key West. Her physician father, Edward Gonzalez, had been born in Key West of Hispanic ancestry. He had met his wife, Paula Oliveros, in medical school in Cuba and they relocated to Key West in 1941.  

Sister Edith attended school at the Convent of Mary Immaculate, as the parish school at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Key West was then known. The family eventually moved to Miami and she graduated from Immaculata Academy (now Immaculata La Salle High School).  In 1965 she received her B.A. from the University of Miami and her M.S. in Special Education from Barry College in 1968.

In that same year, she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo, an Italian congregation that founded the Marian Center School and Services in Miami.  Always proficient in Spanish, Sister Edith became equally adept in Italian. She began teaching at the Marian Center in Miami in 1968, studied fulltime in Torino, Italy, and made her final profession in 1975. She then taught and gave residential supervision to students in Trentola-Ducenta, Italy, until 1980, when she began ministering in Catholic Social Services for the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee as administrator of the Refugee Program, primarily assisting Vietnamese families.

In time, Sister Edith requested a transfer to the religious congregation she knew from her youth � the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine. In 1984 she began the transfer process, affirming her religious profession of vows in 1987 as a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, Florida. Sister Edith then taught at St. Mary Cathedral School, Miami; served as administrator/director of the Cathedral Parish Early Education Center, St. Augustine; and as principal of St. Stephen School in Miramar.

In 1993, Sister Edith began Clinical Pastoral Education studies at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. Returning to Florida in 1995, she served as director of Pastoral Care at Mercy Hospital, Miami. In June 1998, she was appointed director of mission at Mercy, and later promoted to vice president of Mission Integration. She served as vice president until her resignation in June 2012, necessitated by her advanced cancer.    

From 2002 to 2010, Sister Edith also served the Sisters of St. Joseph as a member of General Governance (Councilor) while continuing her ministry at Mercy Hospital.  

She is survived by her sister, Ethel G. Dunn, her brother Edward Gonzalez, a cousin, nieces and a grand-niece. In lieu of flowers, donations in her name may be made to San Juan Bosco Clinic, 3661 S. Miami Ave., Suite 103, Miami, FL 33133.