By Fr. Blaine Burkey, OFMCap.

Fr. Michael Edward Suchnicki, O.F.M.Cap., 86, quietly slipped away Friday evening, Feb. 20, after spending the evening with his religious brothers at St. Francis Friary on Wyandot St. Two day later he would have celebrated 63 years as a professed religious, 28 years of which were spent in service to the people of Denver, especially the homeless and many others in need of special spiritual assistance.

The eldest of five children of Adam and Genevieve (Aleksalsa) Suchnicki, Edward Suchnicki was born May 26, 1938, in Baltimore, where he attended Holy Rosary and St. Patrick Catholic grade schools and graduated from St. Joseph’s High School in 1956.

He then spent four years in repertory theatre in the New York and New England area.

Realizing he did not wish to spent the rest of his life playing the role of someone else -- a discernment, he later described in To Be or Not To Be….a Brother -- Edward decided in 1960 to enter the Capuchin Brothers Training Center in Cumberland, Md., where he trained in religious life and in various skills then regularly practiced by lay members of a religious order.

Under the new religious name, Br. Michael was invested as a novice at Annapolis, Md., and on Feb. 22, 1962, made his first profession of vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Following three more years of training in Cumberland and a year of fraternal service to the community in Pittsburgh, he was assigned to the faculty of St. Joseph’s Military Academy in Hays, Kan., which a few years later was reorganized as Thomas More Prep, a college preparatory school with Christian leadership training.

During his 15 years there, Br. Michael served in a wide variety of tasks at the school and a neighboring Capuchin parish, such as admissions efforts, student life counselor, infirmarian, assistant librarian, grounds supervisions, and teaching catechism in the parish grade school.

Further vocational discernment helped Br. Michael realize that he was called to the priesthood. In 1982, at the age of 44, he enrolled at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Ct. Then, after 28 years as a lay brother, he was ordained a priest on April 29, 1988, at Ellis, Kan., where he had served as a deacon.

Through the next five years, Father served Kansas parishes in Victoria, Vincent, Pfeifer, Catherine, Hays and Munjor.

He came to Colorado in 1993 as associate director and chaplain of Samaritan House in Denver, during which time he was also spiritual assistant to the Secular Franciscan Order, both on the provincial level and at local fraternities in Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyo.; and Rapid City, S.Dak.

Father went back to Kansas for five years as associate pastor of Hays and its mission parishes. His return to Denver in 2001 as chaplain of Samaritan House and Sunday Mass celebrant at St. Patrick’s Church was his final relocation. The following year, he also began a seasonal reconciliation ministry for the Denver Archdiocese, which took him to many different parishes each month. This was followed by four years of similar assistance at the Catholic Center in the Citadel Mall in Colorado Springs.

In his 24 years at Samaritan House, Michael was an untiring advocate for homeless men, women and children who came to the shelter in dire need. He raised funds and wrote countless begging letters to newspapers for everything from heavy coats to diapers and turkeys.

As chaplain, he also gave spiritual comfort and direction to the residents. One of them said, “Fr. Mike is always there when you need him—with a smile or information. He is one of God’s special people and, after spending time with him, nothing seems quite as bad or scary.”

Wherever he has gone, Fr. Michael’s been loved by the people. “We friars also already miss him dearly,” Fr. Blaine Burkey said. “His prayer life was especially edifying to us, and he was more often than not the life of the friary. You could seldom offend him, because he never took himself too seriously. He especially enjoyed calling friars together for a game of cribbage, special enlivened by his ever-present sense of humor.”

Mike Brown, founder of Brainstorming Consultancy, said Michael’s humor was already remarkable when he taught him catechism in the 1970s. “By his constant use of humor, Brother made the students more comfortable and receptive to him, and the religious message he was sharing.

Not long after Michael retired from Samaritan House in 2021, he had had enough with retirement and wrote to parishes all over Denver, saying he was available to help, especially in the confessional. Quickly he was going out twice, occasionally even three time a day, to offer the sacrament of reconciliation. He also made himself more available for spiritual direction of large number of deacons, some of whom he quietly formed into a cenacle of deacons, based on Fr. Stefano Gobbi’s Marian Movement of Priests.

His final assignment was in 2023 as chaplain of the Kateri Native American community in St. Bernadette’s parish in Lakewood.

A news reporter once asked Father what had been his greatest joy during his years as a priest. “The ice cream on the weekends,” he quipped, but then added, “No, I think hearing confession. That has been my greatest joy.”

Besides his religious brothers and sisters in the Capuchin Province of Mid-America, Fr. Michael is survived by a niece, Dawn Hicks, of King’s Mountain, N.C.

Vigil services at St. Patrick’s chapel, 3325 N. Pecos St., Denver, on Thursday evening, Feb. 27 (viewing at 5:00; vigil service at 7:00). Funeral at St. Bernadette’s church, 7240 W. 12th Ave., Lakewood, on Friday morning, Feb. 28 (viewing at 9:30, Mass at 10:30, followed by a reception in the parish hall. Burial in the friars’ plot at Mt. Olivet Catholic cemetery, 12801 W. 44th Ave., Wheat Ridge, at about 2 p.m. Memorials are suggested to the Capuchin Province of St. Conrad, Inc.

The Denver Archdiocesan Mortuary is providing services.