By Ana Rodriguez Soto - Florida Catholic newspaper

MIAMI | Funeral services will take place Wednesday, Aug. 5, beginning at 10 a.m. at St. Benedict Church in Hialeah for Adele González, a “holy woman” who spent more than 30 years forming lay ministers for the Archdiocese of Miami.

González, 70, died Aug. 3. She had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and its painful complications, for most of her adult life.

“She was like my sister for 45 years, but she’s free now. She suffered a lot,” said Zoila Díaz, who retired as director of the archdiocesan Office of Lay Ministry in 2002.

Díaz began working in the office in 1978, and González joined her in 1979. She taught, wrote the bilingual formation program, and served as assistant director of the office and principal of the School of Ministry until her own retirement in 2004.

At the end, she was at peace, Díaz said.

“She would say, ‘I’m happy because I’m going to Disney World,’” recalled Díaz. “For her, going to God was like for a child to go to Disney World for the first time. You don’t know what you’re going to find, and everything is exciting.”

Word of González’s death spread quickly through the community of lay ministers she had taught over the years.

“She taught, she inspired, she loved the people of God in Miami and beyond,” said Cheryl Whapham, who directed the Office of Lay Ministry from 2006 to 2012 and now lives in Texas.

She called González “a holy woman” and said “it was my humble privilege to continue the work that she began with Sister Ann McDermott, Zoila Díaz and others who were and are so dedicated to the ministerial formation of lay people.”

“Adele González was one of my professors in the School of Ministry of the Archdiocese of Miami, and later taught me theology at Barry University,” said Yeshica Yanes in a Facebook post. “I am only one of the thousands of committed laity that she formed with joy and apostolic zeal, always focused on Jesus Christ and love for our Church.”

“She was a person with a gift for explaining any teaching with simple words, so that all of us would understand the message,” posted Noelia Ferrer, also on Facebook. Ferrer, a local Catholic, said she had attended several conferences and biblical seminars taught by González.

“Of course, she was brilliant, and besides that very creative,” said Díaz of her friend, who authored several books published by Orbis Press, including “The Spirituality of Community” and “The Depth and Richness of Scriptures.”

Her most recent, “Life Is Hard but God Is Good: An Inquiry into Suffering,” explored the difference between pain and suffering from the point of view of the Incarnation.

“She had a tremendous love for the Incarnation and for God as love,” Díaz said, to the point that she would count down the days to Christmas every year.  

González also wrote an award-winning book in Spanish — “No Temas, María” (Be Not Afraid, Mary) — for Renew International, the developers of the Why Catholic? formation series.

Even after retiring, González continued to write the monthly Catholic Conversations on Scripture that appear online and in parish bulletins throughout the archdiocese. She started them in the late 1990s and remained their author until 2009.

She also taught theology at Barry University and continued as a volunteer teacher and retreat coordinator with the lay ministry office.

As if that were not enough, Gonzalez also started a new ministry: Get With It, an organization “committed to human and spiritual growth through the fostering of healthy relationships with one’s self, others, the world and God.”

She was an expert on spirituality, multiculturalism, lay ministry and culture who traveled throughout the country giving presentations to bishops and bishops’ conferences, said Sister McDermott in a 2005 interview with the Florida Catholic.

Sister McDermott, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Penance and Christian Charity, succeeded Díaz as director of the Office of Lay Ministry. González became the community’s first lay associate, and later served as co-director of the associates program.

Born Jan. 28, 1945, in Havana, Cuba, González came to the U.S. with her brother, Luis González, as one of 14,000 unaccompanied minors via Operation Pedro Pan in the early 1960s. After a brief stint with the Sisters of St. Philip Neri, she began her career in lay ministry, working first for five years in the Diocese of Orlando.

She earned a doctor of ministry degree from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn., with a specialty in the area of incarnational spirituality. She also obtained a master of divinity and a master in religious studies from Barry University in Miami Shores, where she worked as adjunct professor of theology for 12 years.

She also was certified as a spiritual guide by the Shalem Institute in Maryland.

When she retired in 2004, she wrote a column in La Voz Católica explaining that “the time has come for a change in my walk with the Lord, in the Lord, and toward the Lord.”

During her years in lay ministry, she wrote, “I have come to know many Catholics who have revealed to me the face of God. I have had the privilege to accompany thousands of people at critical moments of confusion, searching, loss. Witnessing their spiritual ups and downs has enriched my life profoundly. … This has made me a better person.”

In addition to her brother, González is survived by her sister-in-law, Gladys González, who also worked in the lay ministry office; one nephew and two nieces; and six grand-nephews and -nieces.

She will be buried at Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery in Doral.