A son of St. James Parish in Arlington, Father John M. Rowan was raised in Arlington and is one of the three children of the late John and Margaret (Harrington) Rowan. He was born on Dec. 3, 1949, and his two siblings are a brother, Robert, and a sister, Margaret.

He attended the parish grammar school before heading a bit east on Massachusetts Avenue for high school at Matignon in Cambridge. Shifting directions a bit and going slightly southeast from his home, he went to Boston College. At the time, BC was more a commuter school than the almost totally residential school it is today.

More than a decade later, he was a student at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, preparing for the priesthood and service for the Archdiocese of Boston. On June 3, 1989, Bernard Cardinal Law ordained him to the priesthood and gave him his first priestly assignment as a parochial vicar at Immaculate Conception Parish, Weymouth. This was the first of several assignments, all in archdiocesan parishes that he would have during the next 35 years.

His next assignment was not too far away, again as parochial vicar, at St. Mary Parish in Quincy. Not infrequently dubbed the "Cathedral of the South Shore," it was one of the older archdiocesan parishes and the mother, grandmother, or great grandmother parish of many of our South Shore parishes. He served as parochial vicar there from 1994 to 2000. In a not unheard of but nevertheless rare move, he was named pastor of the parish in 2000 and served there until 2009.

The location of his third and final assignment prior to being named a senior priest was at St. George Parish in Framingham's Saxonville neighborhood. Interestingly, St. George is also one of the older parishes of the archdiocese, though it has a relatively new parish plant. Located in the northern section of the still growing western suburb, it boasts a civic history dating back to colonial times and a Catholic population deemed sufficient to support a parish created in 1847.

Father Rowan, as so many of our priests, served unassumingly and generously, often unseen and unheralded but more often happily and greatly appreciated by his people.