Rev. John Lyons OMI

TEWKSBURY - The Rev. John Lyons, OMI, a priest for more than six decades with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate order, who was one of the first Oblates to minister in Brazil and served his last assignment at Lowell's Immaculate Conception Church, died Sunday evening, March 9, at the Oblate residence in Tewksbury. He was 86.

He was born in Cambridge, a son of the late Jeremiah and Anne (Hogan) Lyons. He attended Sacred Heart School in Cambridge and entered the Oblate junior seminary at 14, attending Canisius High School and Holy Angels Collegiate Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.

He entered the Oblate Novitiate in Tewksbury in 1935 and took his vows a year later. Father Lyons studied philosophy at the Oblate seminary in Newburgh, N.Y., and Theology in Washington, D.C., where he was ordained on May 28, 1942.

Father Lyons spent the first few years of his ministry in Newburgh, N.Y., and in 1945 he left the United States as one of the founders of the Oblate mission in Sao Paolo, Brazil. He spent the next 15 years there in a variety of ministries.

In 1960, he returned to the United States and was appointed pastor at St. Joseph's Church in Essex, N.Y. After two years, he was transferred to the State Hospital in Columbus Ohio, where he spent three years ministering to the patients. He began his time as a pastor in the predominantly African-American parishes the Oblates staffed in the South in 1965, spending seven years in Florence, S.C., and six years in Fayetteville, N.C. In 1979 he moved to Florida, to be pastor at St. Thomas in Quincy.

He returned to Massachusetts in 1988 to the Immaculate Conception parish in Lowell, and served there for 10 years. His care and concern for the sick and elderly was well known, and he could often be seen visiting patients at hospitals and nursing homes.

Due to failing health, Father Lyons retired to the Oblate residence in Tewksbury in 1998.

He is survived by his brothers, Francis Lyons of Boxboro, and Edward Lyons and his wife Gladys of Reading; a sister-in-law, Rosalie Lyons of New Boston, N.H.; also many nieces and nephews. He was also the brother of the late Joseph, James, William and Gerald Lyons.