Follow

The Virtue of Magnanimity (Magnanimitas) a Part of Fortitude - VirTrue Episode 51

VirTrue - Helping Man Grow in Truth and Virtue

What if thinking too little of yourself can be a vice? Christians talk constantly about humility. We should avoid pride. We should give God the glory. We should remember that everything we have is a gift. But humility can be misunderstood as smallness. “I’m nobody special.” “Someone else can do it.” “I don’t have what it takes.” “I don’t want to be ambitious.” Sometimes those words are humble. Sometimes they give us permission to bury a talent God expects us to use. God does not receive greater glory when we pretend His gifts are smaller than they really are. If He has given you the ability to build something great, lead something great, teach something great, suffer something great, create something great, or become something great, those gifts carry a responsibility. Humility recognizes where the gift came from. Magnanimity puts it to work. And that’s why Magnanimity matters. The Social Catholic is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support our work, become a paid subscriber today! 🎙️ Intro Welcome to VirTrue, where we work together to turn away from vice and to adopt the virtuous life we’re all called to. I’m your host, Jethro Higgins. We are continuing our season on Fortitude. We have learned to Rest, so that activity does not rule us. We learned Stability, so that we can put down roots in the good. We learned Tolerance, so that difficulty does not corrupt us. We learned Constancy, so that distractions do not turn us away from our course. We learned Fidelity, so that we remain true to what we have rightly promised. And we learned Perseverance, so that we continue long enough for the good to reach maturity. Now the scale gets bigger. What are we persevering for? What kind of things should a Christian dare to undertake? Today we are talking about Magnanimity — Magnanimitas — greatness of soul. 🦁 Description Magnanimity is the virtue by which we truthfully recognize the gifts God has given us and courageously undertake great works proportionate to those gifts for His glory. The Latin gives us the basic idea: magnus — great animus — soul Magnanimity is greatness of soul. Aristotle gives us the philosophical foundation in the Nicomachean Ethics. Magnanimity concerns a person who considers himself worthy of great things and actually is worthy of them. That last part matters. Magnanimity requires an accurate understanding of ourselves. We can estimate ourselves too highly. We can also estimate ourselves too lowly. Someone capable of a great work can shrink from it through fear, comfort, or a false understanding of humility. Aristotle therefore describes Magnanimity as a kind of crown of the virtues. It gives greatness to their exercise. Courage can endure something difficult; Magnanimity can direct that courage toward something truly great. Generosity can give; Magnanimity can give on a great scale when circumstances require it. Aquinas takes this classical idea and places it within the Christian understanding of creation and grace: “Magnanimity by its very name denotes stretching forth of the mind to great things.” The soul reaches toward something great. That immediately raises a problem for Christians. How can we think ourselves capable of great things while remaining humble? Aquinas answers by recognizing two truths about the same person: “There is in man something great which he possesses through the gift of God; and something defective which accrues to him through the weakness of nature.” That gives us the balance. Whatever greatness exists in us is real. And it is received. Our intelligence is received. Our strength is received. Our creativity is received. Our opportunities are received. Our vocation is received. Grace itself is received. St. Paul asks: “What do you possess that you have not received?” — 1 Corinthians 4:7 Nothing. Recognizing that dependence upon God gives Magnanimity its proper humility. It also gives God’s gifts their proper seriousness. Five talents entrusted by God really are five talents. Calling them one does not make us more humble. The Catechism describes humility as: “the foundation of prayer.” It explains that humility recognizes that we do not know how to pray as we ought and that receiving prayer itself as God’s gift requires the disposition of the humble. That same posture of reception applies here. Magnanimity begins with something received. Aquinas therefore explains that Magnanimity directs a person toward great works of virtue according to the gifts he possesses. The gift creates responsibility. This is also why Magnanimity belongs under Fortitude. Great things are difficult. They involve risk. They expose us to failure. They attract criticism. They require sacrifice. They may require years of work before anyone sees the fruit. Fortitude keeps us from retreating before difficulty. Magnanimity gives that strength a great object. Hugh of St. Victor helps us understand the importance of ordering our abilities toward their proper end. Human capacities are goods, but those goods can become disordered. Intelligence can serve truth or pride. Leadership can serve the common good or personal power. Creativity can glorify God or glorify the creator. The question is what the gift is for. Magnanimity sees the gift within God’s providence and puts it into service. That requires genuine self-knowledge. St. Bernard’s treatment of humility is especially useful here because humility is grounded in truth. Accurate self-knowledge includes our weakness, our dependence upon grace, and the genuine good God has accomplished in us. False humility can become another form of falsehood. If God has given someone an extraordinary intellect, denying that intellect changes nothing. If God has given someone the ability to lead, refusing to acknowledge that ability does not glorify Him. If God has equipped someone to undertake a difficult work for the good of thousands of people, fear of appearing ambitious can become an excuse for leaving that work undone. Our Lady gives us perhaps the clearest biblical expression of this balance in the Magnificat: “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” — Luke 1:49 Great things. Mary does not deny them. She immediately identifies their source. The greatness is real because the gift is real. The glory belongs to God because the gift came from Him. That is the heart of Christian Magnanimity. God has given each of us something. Magnanimity receives it truthfully, develops it faithfully, and spends it courageously in the service of something great. ⚠️ Vice of Deficiency: Mediocrity Mediocrity is the voluntary settling for lesser things when God has given us the gifts, opportunities, and vocation to pursue something greater. This settling occurs as a result of comfort, fear, laziness, or false humility, leaving God’s good gifts underused. Mediocrity does not mean being ordinary. Most of the Christian life is ordinary. Changing diapers can be holy. Going to work can be holy. Cooking dinner can be holy. Praying with your family can be holy. Living quietly can be holy. A person does not need fame, wealth, influence, or extraordinary accomplishments to possess Magnanimity. The measure is faithful use of what God has actually entrusted to us. Mediocrity appears when we recognize that more is required and choose less because the greater work brings responsibility, sacrifice, inconvenience, uncertainty, or the possibility of failure. Comfort becomes sufficient. The difficult project remains unfinished. The opportunity passes. The talent stays undeveloped. The responsibility goes to someone else. The servant in the Gospel who buried his talent did not squander it through wild living. He returned exactly what he had received. And his master condemned him. The talent had been entrusted to him for use. Fear turned stewardship into burial. False humility can do the same thing. Someone with five talents can insist upon living as though he has one because acknowledging five feels prideful. But God gave five. The proper response is gratitude, development, and service. 🔥 Vice of Excess: Grandiosity Grandiosity is an inflated pursuit of greatness beyond one’s actual gifts, vocation, or calling, treating imagined importance as though it were a mission received from God. Grandiosity distorts the same desire for greatness that Magnanimity perfects. The work becomes a means of establishing personal importance. Scale begins to matter too much. Audience matters too much. Recognition matters too much. Ordinary responsibilities begin to look insignificant beside the extraordinary life we imagine for ourselves. An entrepreneur can dream about building an empire before learning to serve his first customer. An apostle can dream about evangelizing millions while neglecting the person sitting across the table. A father can imagine changing the culture while neglecting the children already entrusted to him. A Christian can interpret every strong personal desire as a divine mission because ordinary fidelity seems too small. There may even be genuine gifts underneath all of this. Grandiosity exaggerates their measure or misjudges their purpose. Aquinas’s principle remains useful: great undertakings should be proportionate to our actual capacity. Providence has given each of us a particular place, particular responsibilities, particular gifts, and particular opportunities. Magnanimity can undertake something enormous when God has actually entrusted something enormous. Grandiosity needs the enormous thing because greatness has become part of our identity. 🧍 My Life I studied Alexandre Havard’s work on Magnanimity while at the Catholic University of America. One idea that stayed with me was that Magnanimity and Humility belong together. Magnanimity is greatness in proper humility. God is the source of all goodness. Recognizing something good in myself does not require taking credit for creating it. * I have spent much of my life building things. * A family * A Marriage * Well-adjusted children * Businesses. * Ministries. * Media. * Technology. * The Social Catholic. * VirTrue. * Building anything creates temptations toward both mediocrity and grandiosity. * Sometimes the safer, smaller version is attractive because it costs less and carries less risk. * Sometimes scale becomes attractive because accomplishment can start proving something about me. * The real question is: What has God actually entrusted to me? * The size of the work is not ultimately the measure. * Fidelity to the gift is. * If God gives you the capacity and responsibility to build something great, build it greatly. * If God gives you hidden work, do the hidden work greatly. * Either way, the greatness belongs to God. 🌍 The World Our culture has a strange relationship with greatness. Mediocrity is easy to normalize. Do enough to get by. Avoid unnecessary responsibility. Protect your comfort. Don’t sacrifice too much. Then social media pushes hard in the other direction. Build your personal brand. Become an influencer. Become a founder. Become a thought leader. Grow your audience. Turn yourself into something remarkable. The first temptation leaves gifts undeveloped. The second exaggerates their importance. Christian Magnanimity measures greatness through stewardship. Our gifts exist because God intends some good to be accomplished through them. That good might affect millions of people. It might affect seven children. It might affect one parish. It might affect one person. The number does not determine the greatness. God determines the gift. Providence supplies the opportunity. Virtue puts it to work. 🌟 Example Saint: St. Paul the Apostle Lived: First century A.D. From: Tarsus in Cilicia Mission: Apostle to the Gentiles Why he fits Few lives feel as large as St. Paul’s. He was intelligent, educated, driven, courageous, a Roman citizen, a gifted teacher, and a natural leader. Before his conversion, those gifts were terribly misdirected. Paul persecuted Christians. Then Christ met him on the road to Damascus. His conversion did not erase the force of his personality or the scale of his abilities. Grace redirected them. The intensity that had persecuted the Church became intensity in preaching Christ. His intellect became an instrument for explaining the Gospel. His courage carried him through persecution, beatings, imprisonment, rejection, shipwreck, and eventually martyrdom. Paul knew the darkness of his past. He calls himself: “the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” — 1 Corinthians 15:9 The very next verse gives us perhaps the perfect expression of Christian Magnanimity: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective.” — 1 Corinthians 15:10 By the grace of God. Every gift has a source. I am what I am. Paul does not deny what grace has made of him. His grace to me has not been ineffective. The gift bears fruit. Paul carries the Gospel across the Roman world. He preaches to Jews and Gentiles. He establishes churches. He writes letters that will form Christians for thousands of years. He appeals to Caesar. He wants to preach Christ where Christ has not yet been named. And through all of it, the source remains clear: “What do you possess that you have not received?” — 1 Corinthians 4:7 Paul knows his weakness. He knows his sin. He knows his gifts. He knows his mission. And he knows where every good thing in him came from. That is Magnanimity. Legacy St. Paul shows us how enormous a human life can become when grace is received and spent. Whatever greatness exists in us came from God. Whatever greatness He calls us to accomplish depends upon His grace. So we receive the gift. We develop it. We spend it. And when the work is finished, the glory returns to the One who gave us everything. The Social Catholic is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support our work, become a paid subscriber today! ⚔️ Act of Magnanimity O my God, I recognize that every good thing in me comes from You. I will neither bury Your gifts through fear and mediocrity nor exaggerate them through pride and grandiosity. Give me the humility to see myself truthfully, the courage to undertake the great works You place before me, and the fortitude to spend every gift You have given me for Your glory and the good of others. By Your grace, may what You have given me never be ineffective. Amen. 🙏 Closing Prayer Lord, bless us with faith, hope, love, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice that we may live as you intended man to live, in all virtue and righteousness. Help us to flee from sin, and avoid all temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Protect us with a spiritual hedge in front of us, behind us, above us, below us, to our right, and to our left, within us, and all around us, and seal it with the precious blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to keep you in everything that we think, say, and do. Amen. Go out and fill the world with virtue. Deus Vult! Follow Us on Social Media and Other Podcast Networks: Get full access to The Social Catholic at socialcatholic.substack.com/subscribe