Teams of Our Lady thanks Father Ermer for dedication to local marriages

It is with much gratitude that we’d like to highlight and thank Father James Ermer, pastor of St. Leo’s Church in Casselton, for his efforts to bring Teams of our Lady to Fargo and Moorhead. Father Ermer has a passion and dedication for this Catholic couple lay movement. His story with Teams of Our Lady began as a third-year seminarian in 1977 at St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.

As a second-year seminarian, Father Ermer was assigned to St. Michael’s Parish in Prior Lake, Minn. Some of his duties included helping with 2nd grade education. At that time he was told about Teams of our Lady, that “it wasn’t a support group; it was a group of couples really alive in their marriages.”

“I learned about the Endeavors. The Sit-Down was very interesting to me. I didn’t know of any marriages that did that!” said Father Ermer.

Soon the Team was looking for a chaplain, and he was asked if he would be willing to serve in that capacity. As a seminarian, Father Ermer became chaplain for a team that year with six couples.

“These were couples that had great marriages and wanted to grow deeper,” said Father Ermer. “In December, they had a Christmas party where all family members were invited. That was such a great experience of marriage and family life. I said to myself that when I became a pastor, I would like to start Teams of Our Lady. After a number of diocesan assignments, I became pastor at St. Anthony’s in Fargo. I never lost that passion for Teams that I learned at St. Michael’s in Prior Lake.”

In January 2005, Father Ermer invited several couples from St. Anthony’s for a dinner, along with Ted and Janet Windus, from Duluth, Minn. (already in Teams, and a Pilot Couple), for an information meeting.

Twenty-three couples came, and out of that, 10 couples joined, thus starting the first two teams in North Dakota. Since then, we have grown to 11 teams, and all teams are blessed to have a priest chaplain. Father Ermer personally reaches out to his brother priests, to tell them about teams and recruits them to be a team chaplain.

Father Ermer states that the best fruit of teams for a chaplain besides a delicious meal each month is the opportunity to “sit with couples who have rich marriages.”

 “You see the dynamics of married couples and what they go through—joys and struggles: kids leaving the faith, deaths in the family, raising children, learning how couples resolve issues,” said Father Ermer. “It’s an enrichment for the priest in his work with marriage preparation and struggling marriages.” 

Father Ermer cited Father Henri Caffarel’s wisdom, after WWII, that Teams of Our Lady not evolve into a social or dinner club. Similar to the Benedictine Rule, Father Caffarel proposed a “rule” to married Christians who wished to progress spiritually, thus starting the Teams’ Spirituality of the Endeavors to guide teams, and help couples grow in holiness. This founding document is called the “Charter of the Teams of Our Lady.”

 “Over the years as a priest chaplain, one begins to see the wisdom of Father Caffarel, the importance of the Endeavors, and the intentionality that grounds the Teams movement,” said Father Ermer. “I often say that the Endeavors are the ‘heart and soul’ of Teams.”

Thank you, Father Ermer, for bringing Teams of Our Lady, to the Fargo/Moorhead area! Thank you also for being the Fargo/Moorhead Sector Chaplain since 2009, and also saying yes to the additional role as the North Central Regional Chaplain starting in October 2020. 

Teams of Our Lady is an International Lay Catholic Couple Movement, to help couples discover, in and through their own sacrament of matrimony, that the riches and joys of married love are part of God’s plan, and a path to holiness.

The Fargo-Moorhead Sector consists of 11 teams, with a total of 62 couples. If you are interested in this couple spirituality movement, visit teamsofourlady.org.