After 25 years of formation, service and friendship in the Diocese of La Crosse, Christopher Ruff reflects on the providence that guided his ministry.
(Editor’s Note: Some legacies are easier to see and feel than to summarize. Christopher Ruff’s is written across 25 years of formation, ministry, service and faithful witness throughout the Diocese of La Crosse.
What follows is Chris’s own reflection on those years. It is thoughtful, grateful and characteristically generous in assigning credit to nearly everyone but himself. This brief note is offered, then, to help frame for the reader what his humility may leave understated: the remarkable scope of his work and the number of lives shaped by it.
Chris Ruff
Director of the Office for Ministries and Social Concerns
By the time this article appears, I will have retired after 25 years of service to the Diocese of La Crosse. It’s hard for me to believe, but that is where I find myself on God’s providential timeline. Reflecting on those 25 years, I’m moved to reminisce with gratitude about a few highlights.
A Wink From God
I’m grateful for the phone call that came from then-Bishop Raymond Burke on Dec. 12, 2000, offering me the position of Director of the Office for Ministries. It was the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which held special meaning for me, starting in the fourth grade, when a religious sister told our class the story of Juan Diego, Our Lady and the miraculous image. My heart was on fire as I listened to her, in a way that still burns when I recall it. From that moment, Our Lady of Guadalupe would become a recurring presence in my life in ways that would take too long to describe.
A copy of her image, which I obtained from the Shrine in Mexico in 1976, hangs over the door in our home’s entryway. For Bishop Burke’s phone call to have come on that day in December was like a wink from God. And then, soon after, I learned he was planning to build a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse!
Extraordinary Shepherds
I’m grateful for the four bishops I have been privileged to work under: Bishop Raymond L. Burke, Bishop Jerome E. Listecki, Bishop William Patrick Callahan and Bishop Gerard W. Battersby. What a blessing that our diocese has been led by such holy, dedicated shepherds, with exemplary priests and deacons ministering under them. Speaking of deacons, it has been an enormous privilege to be Father William Felix’s assistant director of Deacon Formation and part of an incredible team.
The Joy of Lay Formation
I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to direct the Lay Formation Institute (LFI). Nothing has given me greater joy than being able to accompany each class of men and women as they have studied, prayed and deepened their relationship with Jesus Christ. While conferences and big events are important in Catholic life, there is something uniquely powerful about accompanying a group of people over a period of two years. It has been inspiring to see them forge bonds of friendship centered on Christ and to know that they carry the gifts and the enthusiasm they’ve developed back into their parishes. Hundreds of the faithful have gone through the LFI, and I have seen their smiling faces at ordinations and many other gatherings. The lamp of faith shines brightly in their eyes.
“Faith Alive” in Loving Service
When it comes to the area of social concerns, which was merged with the Office for Ministries in 2006 (making it the Office for Ministries and Social Concerns), I am grateful to Bishop Listecki for his tremendous support when, in that same year, we launched the “Faith Alive” program for parish small groups, with its component of service. The premise of the program was that loving service to our neighbor in need must be the responsibility of every follower of Christ.
I felt moved to write a series of books to guide the parish small groups, and it was heartening to see them used fruitfully across our diocese and in several others. I’ll never forget a deacon telling me that he had formed one of these small groups in his jail ministry, and that as they went through the book, the inmates were inspired to look for ways to be of service to one another!
Catholic Charities
I’m grateful to have served on the Board of Directors for Catholic Charities and to have come to know and admire first the late Deacon Richard Sage, and then Roberto Partarrieu and their staffs. Catholic Charities is such a beautiful embodiment of the love of Jesus for our neighbor in need and its initiatives on behalf of the homeless have been particularly inspiring and effective.
Diocesan Social Ministry and Chalice of Mercy
I’m grateful to the members of the Diocesan Social Ministry Committee for their efforts to support social ministry in the parishes in each of their deaneries. Their coordination was particularly valuable in several diocesan-wide humanitarian drives for Chalice of Mercy on behalf of the suffering people of Ukraine. Collaboration with Valentyna Pavsyukova, who founded Chalice of Mercy 19 years ago in Chippewa Falls, has been one of the true highlights of my tenure in the diocese. Her selfless dedication and courage have been an incredible witness to the sacrificial love of Christ.
Gospel of Life and the Need for Healing
In the area of Respect Life, I have greatly appreciated and enjoyed working with Dr. Stephen Pavela, president of the La Crosse Guild of the Catholic Medical Association, on the annual White Mass for Catholic healthcare professionals with its associated Gospel of Life Banquet, and other initiatives.
Over the past year, we have worked to establish Rachel Ministries for healing after abortion. I am grateful to Amy Mulhern for her willingness to coordinate this ministry, and to Jennifer Fisk, who has assisted her. They are deeply sensitive to the need for it, especially with today’s prevalence of mail-order abortion drugs.
Rachel Ministries offers a path of accompaniment, healing and forgiveness to all who have been affected by any manner of abortion, making it an essential dimension of pro-life work. It also offers a path of healing from the grief of losing a child by miscarriage.
The Blessings of a Rural Church
Another area of social awareness and ministry is tied to the reality that we are a rural diocese, with all its associated opportunities and challenges. Our annual Rural Life Day has been an absolute delight and is considered one of the finest in the Midwest, thanks to the Rural Life Committee and the leadership of a line of diocesan rural life liaisons. During my tenure, our first was Dan Kitzhaber, then Deacon Bob Zietlow and now Anne Marie Elwing.
Their work has also been vital for the phenomenal success of Project Milk, which nearly every year sends a shipping container of dried whole milk to Casa Hogar, our diocese’s orphanage in Peru. Last fall, we shipped 22 tons of dried milk (800 bags), which supplied not only Casa Hogar but also other orphanages and many in need in the surrounding communities, even deep in the jungle.
Project Milk has been sustained by the generous donations of the people, parishes and institutions of the diocese, to whom we owe our most profound gratitude.
Especially in our rural communities, the diocese has seen significant growth in the Latino population. I have been edified by our priests’ dedication to learning Spanish and ministering to these brothers and sisters. Fathers Arturo Vigueras, Fernando Lara and Juan Pedro Baltazar have contributed especially as native speakers and leaders. It has been an honor to offer support to this ministry, complementing the extensive resources of Catholic Charities Immigration Services.
Friends and Fellow Laborers
Continuing my litany of gratitude, I’m immensely thankful and honored to have worked with wonderful colleagues in the diocesan curia. I think immediately of Ann Lankford in Catechesis and Evangelization, Chris Carstens and Jacob Zepp in Sacred Worship, Chris Rogers in Family Life, Tom Reichenbacher in Catholic Schools, Erik Archer in Communications and their support staffs. These are leaders and friends with whom I have collaborated directly and often. We prayed together, laughed together, and strove to cooperate with God’s grace in stirring into flame the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Diocese of La Crosse.
Of course, none of that would have been possible without Andrew Brannon, our CFO
(and Jim Rieder before him),
Jeff Reiter in Stewardship and all the others who have helped serve the temporal needs of the diocese. And Debbie Brannon, executive assistant to the bishop, has been extraordinary in planning and logistics for diocesan events large and small.
My Beloved Bride
Saving the best for last, my deepest gratitude goes to my beloved wife, Clare. It’s not only that she has held down the fort for a husband who has worked for the Church for 38 years (25 at the diocese, 13 at a large Minneapolis parish before that) and loved me through it all. It’s that she lives by Jesus’ words—“Whatever you have done for the least of my brethren, you have done for me.” I think of her loving solicitude for the childless, aging widow who needed us to bring her to Sunday Mass and who was a delightful guest in our home on holidays, one example among many. Clare shows me every day that we don’t have to look far for opportunities for “social ministry.”
Rallying Cry
I’m afraid this barely skims the surface of all the blessings I’ve experienced and shared over the past 25 years. My deep gratitude is joined to great hopefulness for what lies ahead for the Diocese of La Crosse, especially through the Rebuild My Church initiative, with its focus on parish renewal and mission.
I would like to close this grateful reminiscence by quoting a fervent exhortation of my hero, Pope St. John Paul II:
“Let us put out into the deep…. Go to all people, a boundless ocean. This is possible in a missionary Church, which is able to touch the human heart, because the saving encounter with Christ occurs there, in that intimate and sacred place.”
This rallying cry reminds me that while I have retired from my position at the Diocese of La Crosse, I will never retire from the beautiful mission assigned to us all. May God be ever praised and glorified!