Q) I know that I should grow in virtue, but I’m not sure where to start. If I were to grow in any virtue, which one should I make sure I don’t neglect?

A) This is a great question. It demonstrates that you know that your life is meant to be lived on purpose.

Let me stop on that for one moment. We are all in the midst of crafting a life. We are all in the business of becoming who we will be for all eternity. This is what is happening every moment of our lives. God has created and redeemed you in Christ so that you can become his masterpiece. But too many people are drifting through life and becoming nothing more than a disaster. Unless we cooperate with the grace of God that has come to us through Jesus, our lives become nothing more than a waste of all that God has done for us.

Does that sound extreme? Maybe. But only because we rarely live in touch with reality. We rarely acknowledge that this life is either lived on purpose or is wasted by living “off purpose.”

To “live on purpose” means to live with vision. There is a vision that God has for your life, and we are meant to share this vision. This vision will be more than most people have naturally. Too often, many of us settle for a comfortable life rather than a great life. We settle for a life in which we have fame rather than a life in which we pursue excellence.

We can only become the people God has made us to be if we share in his vision for our lives. And we can only manifest that vision if we make a great effort.

Now, humility might be the most important virtue in so many ways. It reminds us of who we are and who we are not. Humility allows us to grow in gratitude to God and an awareness of our need for his grace. This might be the premiere virtue that leads to other great and necessary virtues of faith, hope and love.

But while humility and the other virtues are essential, there is a call that God has placed upon every person on earth that moves us to not stop at simply acknowledging our place in relation to him. It is the virtue that moves a person to stretch beyond themselves and choose greatness, even in the midst of humility. There is one virtue that runs through all of the rest, and it is the virtue of magnanimity.

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According to St. Thomas Aquinas, magnanimity is the stretching forth of the mind to great things. Even more, he notes that a person “is said to be magnanimous chiefly because he is minded to do great acts.” The truly magnanimous person has rejected and overcome the natural timidity that self-aware people experience in the face of the truth about their own frailty.

Magnanimity acknowledges one’s littleness without allowing that reality to hold one back from the great acts God is calling a person to perform. This is true when it comes to our prayer lives, our vocations and the daily actions God has placed in front of us. One of the key elements of magnanimity is that it is more than merely the pursuit of the good. It is operating out of the conviction that one is called to do great things — to become great.

This is so much more than “believing in oneself.” In fact, it has almost nothing in common with “self-confidence.” Magnanimity sees oneself in light of all that a person has received from God and is the determination to respond to these gifts that come from God. It is that a person has been so moved by God’s love and generosity that he or she is moved to do the same. This is why the true virtue of magnanimity has no room for pride.

According to St. Thomas, pride is an excessive desire for one’s own excellence, which rejects subjection to God. Magnanimity pursues excellence in spite of one’s weakness and in direct response to God’s goodness. Because of this, magnanimous people rejoice anywhere they see God’s gifts magnified, whether in their own life or in another person’s life. And because of this, magnanimity can be lived out regardless of the success or fame of the person.

From St. Katharine Drexel, an heiress who founded a community of religious sisters who served Africans brought to this country and American Indians, to St. Junipero Serra, a man who left his native country of Spain to journey up and down the California coast bringing the Gospel of Jesus to everyone he encountered. From St. Peter Claver, who left the comfort of his life in Europe to spend his life in the service of those who were victims of the slave trade in Colombia, to Blessed Solanus Casey, a man who spent his life as a religious brother who swept the floors and answered the door of the monastery in which he lived — all of the saints of God have this in common: They did these things with magnanimity. They did these things with an eternal perspective.

They knew that God had a vision for their lives, and they stretched themselves toward this great vision of God’s, even when the world did not recognize the importance of their work. One could rightly ask how both St. Katharine and Blessed Solanus could manifest the same virtue of pursuing greatness. After all, one spent her life transforming and saving individuals whom some saw as mere property to be used and discarded, and the other spent his life picking up after other friars. The greatness, the excellence does not lie in how famous or influential they were but in the way they lived their lives and performed their daily duties.

In fact, the humble monastery broom handler once noted, “Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your task.” This is God’s vision for your life: for you to stretch yourself beyond yourself. God has made and re-made you to become like him: great in love and in generosity.

All of the saints did this. With the strength provided by God, they did not shrink back from greatness, and they did not hide from the gifts God had given them. Rather, with great courage, the magnanimous rely upon God and seek to make of each gift he has given them an incredible gift back to God.

Father Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth.