Remembering Maxi Gonzalo

By Armando Lozano

National Leader, Spain

Maxi Gonzalo was one of those precious grandmas who in many countries support our church with their prayers, sacrificial conditions and unchanging love. God brought her to our movement in 1973, when she was already 63 years old, and left us for the eternal home, September 27, 2002 at the age of 92.

When Maxi came to our pioneering church in Madrid, there were four sisters, much younger in age. One of them was her own daughter Ana. Everyone had a job to keep the center running and did witnessing on their spare time, getting arrested often by the Police. Spain was going then through the final years of the dictatorship of General Franco, a heavy turmoil that lead to the democratic system and freedom of religion.

Amidst this situation, Maxi Gonzalo, a pious Catholic, was impressed by the Divine Principle and the fact that the Second Coming of Christ had occurred in Korea. She was moved by the spirit and being a strong willed person, invested many hours in the study of the Principle, writing down in very neat notebooks word by word Father’s speeches and the Principle. She even studied English with the hope to be able to read more of Father’s speeches. Soon her unchanging dedication was put to test by her husband and other sons and daughters not understanding and supporting the sudden change in the grandma.

In 1975, Ana went away to Japan and Korea with the global witnessing team. She never came back to Spain to work with the church. But Maxi was not coming t our church just because her daughter was here. She was coming because she was moved by the truth and that feeling kept unchanged through the years.

When she visited Madrid, already in her seventies, she would go witnessing with the members and even fundraising sometimes. She was in many ways the grandma of all of us, so young at that time and mostly suffering the misunderstanding of our own parents. She would always inspire us with her beautiful spiritual experiences and dreams with True Parents, her poems in church celebrations and her constant positive attitude.

A day of great joy was attending the blessing of her daughter Ana with Dieter Schmidt, from Germany, on July 1^st 1982, in New York City. She went there with several other mothers who didn’t want to miss this important day for their children.

But perhaps the day she really was waiting for was the day of her own blessing on April 7, 1989 in New York. By then, her husband had already gone to the spiritual world. She treasured the fact of being blessed very deeply. In everything she did she wanted to do what was proper according to Unification tradition.

In late years she had to live with one daughter, far away from any Church center and could not come to Madrid by herself. It was a difficult time for her. She started to have many physical difficulties due to her age, but her big concern was that there will be a proper Seung Hwa ceremony and that she could keep her faith and dedication until the end. And that she really did. She kept her prayers and readings ‘til the very last week.

Finally she left us in September last year. We conducted the first Seung Hwa ceremony in Spain. Members gave testimonies to her love, sung songs and read some of her poems. In the audience there were also several members of her family. At the end, one of her daughters went to the front and thanked the Unification Church for offering such a beautiful ceremony and showing so much heart for Maxi.

The ceremony was conducted in the city of Burgos, known in Spain as the city of El Cid, a middle age hero. And truly Maxi Gonzalo showed such brave heart on earth and I’m sure that her dedicated spirit must be also doing a great service to our Heavenly Father and True Parents in the Spirit World.