8 Marian Helper • Spring 2026 • Marian.org The penitential season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18 — and a good companion on your spiritual journey towards Easter and on to Divine Mercy Sunday is Overcome Evil with Good, the 2026 Lenten devotional from the Marian Fathers. The devotional contains easy-to-read, brief meditations for each day from Ash Wednesday through to Divine Mercy Sunday. Read just one page a day to help prepare your heart to receive profound graces. The daily meditations are written in a friendly voice, filled with everyday examples and packed with thought-provoking content. The title is taken from the episcopal motto of Bl. George Matulaitis (1871-1927), the Renovator of the Marian Congregation. It’s 100 years since Bl. George paid his last visit to the United States to view the fruits of his labors, a growing presence of Marian Fathers, especially in Chicago, Illinois and Washington, D.C. Goodness overcomes evil The holy season of Lent is the Church’s recognition that we, the Mystical Body of Christ, the People of God, are weeds as well as wheat; bad fish as well as good; sinners in need of sanctification. There is a stark realism to the fact that our penitential seasons are annual. The Church presumes that we need to do penance for our sins. She doesn’t wait for us to convert of our own accord, or repent, or be perfect before she gives us the medicinal tools of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. She just brings us, like any good mother would, to Lenten practices to get cleaned up on a regular basis. Goodness overcomes evil. Why is that? Because goodness communicates being. In other words, something that is real. Evil is the absence of goodness and thus communicates nothingness. Goodness overcomes evil, then because goodness infuses something real into the empty space of evil. It’s like filling a cavity in a tooth. Goodness, which is communicated through every act of Divine Mercy, overcomes evil fully and finally at the end of time, completing a work of salvation that is rooted in Calvary, but that began in Genesis 3:15, with God’s promise of a coming Savior. Goodness is the Christian path, as the Gospel makes plain, and as St. Paul made abundantly clear in the Letter to the Romans (and Bl. George professed): “Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good” (Rom 12:21; see also Rom 3:8). Do not do evil so that good may come of it; do not use the tools of the devil to try to defeat the devil. As soon as you do, he has won a victory. Do not make the mistake of simple reaction, fleeing away from evil right past Christ Crucified into the arms of the opposing error. Keep your gaze fixed on Jesus, and stand with Christ and His Church. Do Works of Mercy, and defeat all evil. Virtue over vice This Lent, abide in goodness; train in goodness; use this devotional to practice our faith. Practice virtue to overcome vice, to win against the world, the flesh, and the devil, in communion with Christ through prayer, Word, and Sacrament. Saint Faustina received guidance from Jesus Himself on spiritual warfare: Do not bargain with any temptation; lock yourself immediately in My Heart and, at the first opportunity, reveal the temptation to the confessor. Put your selflove in the last place, so that it does not taint your deeds. Bear with yourself with great patience. … Shun murmurers like a plague. Let all act as they like; you are to act as I want you to (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 1760). Live Lent well. Live Lent with Jesus in Scripture and the Diary. Practice goodness and mercy, and overcome evil. Live Lent well To order (Product code B69-LD26), visit ShopMercy.org or call 1-800-462-7426.
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