Magnanimity is not only a fun virtue to say,
it is an incredible virtue to have.
In fact, I would maintain that magnanimity might be
one of the most important virtues.
If you want to be a saint, you have to be magnanimous.
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Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
I'm thinking about these two saints, here's two very, very different saints.
One is Saint Katharine Drexel,
Saint Katharine Drexel, born in the United States,
and Blessed Solanus Casey.
Well, he's blessed, not necessarily declared a saint yet,
but also born in the United States.
But really, really different and also really, really the same.
So Saint Katharine Drexel was an heiress,
so she was raised in an incredibly wealthy family.
So she [was] millionaire, multi-millionaire even,
way, way, way back when multi-millionaire would be
multi-multi-millionaire, kind of a situation.
Blessed Solanus Casey I think grew up in Stillwater Minnesota
so not only is he local to me
but he also was in from a pretty poor family.
Saint Katharine Drexel, when she entered religious life,
she became not only religious sister,
she became the founder of a religious community
that served the native American people of the United States,
that served the African-American people of the United States.
In fact she and her sister, her biological sister,
as well as her sisters-sisters, they created groups,
they used their wealth, they used their influence, they used their faith
to create institutions and programs that helped native Americans have upward,
upward mobility and helped African Americans have upward mobility.
In fact Xavier University in Louisiana, founded by
St. Katharine Drexel and her sisters,
the first black university in this country.
So, did incredible things for so many people
that basically she spent her life helping people
that others thought were unworthy of help, up.
On the other hand, Blessed Solanus Casey
became a religious brother and
basically used a broom. He was, you know,
he swept the monastery, he answered the door — they call that a porter —
he answered the door at the monastery. That's what he did, whereas
Katharine Drexel picked up people who people thought were garbage,
Blessed Solanus Casey just picked up garbage.
Both of them not only are saints, both of them have
a virtue in common with each other, that I want to talk about today,
and that virtue is called magnanimity.
Now, there's other important virtues, right.
Humility is kind of the initial virtue that all of us
need to have (we'll talk about that in a second)
but also, the virtue of faith, very important,
hope, love ("the greatest of these is love")
absolutely, very, very essential, but magnanimity is
something unique and it is something that you might even say
takes all these other virtues: virtue of humility, and love, and faith, and hope
and justice, and temperance... all of them, and raises them
to the level of excellence.
In fact, that's what it is to be magnanimous:
magnanimity refers to greatness of soul,
like magnus and animus, or magna animus
is great and anima is your soul,
so greatness of soul, greatness of spirit, greatness of heart
It's another way to say, that's what it means to have magnanimity.
St. Thomas Aquinas said it like this, he said:
magnanimity is the stretching forth of the mind,
or stretching forth of the heart, stretching forth of the soul.
Magnanimity is the stretching forth of the person
towards great things, towards excellence.
And this is so incredible and so incredibly important,
because it is not the same thing as pride, there's the prideful person that thinks:
well, I rely on my own gifts, that I am great because of myself.
Magnanimity says: no, I am recognizing the fact
that God gave me certain gifts and that He is calling me
towards excellence in those gifts, and so now
I have this stretching forth of my soul, stretching forth of my heart,
stretching forth of myself towards excellence, towards great things
when it comes to using the gifts that God has given me.
And this is so incredibly important, why?
This is not the same thing as pride, pride is:
these are my gifts and I will use them however I see fit.
Magnanimity is: the Lord has gifted me and now,
in order to honor Him to the degree that He has gifted me,
I use these gifts. In fact you've heard the saying
"Who you are is God's gift to you. Who you become is your gift back to God."
Right, that's kind of, in a nutshell, magnanimity.
Who you are is God's gift to you, or the gifts you have are God's gift to you.
What you do with them, who you become with them,
is your gift back to God. And so here's the thing,
every saint has to be magnanimous, have that greatness of soul
that great stretching forth to do great things,
to be great for the Lord.
So St. Katharine Drexel, she realizes,
okay, God has given me all of these gifts, all of these opportunities,
He has blessed me abundantly with His love,
and so I have to use them to the utmost of my ability.
She stretched forth to great things.
But so did Blessed Solanus Casey.
He said: Lord has given me these gifts.
And so part of those gifts would be excellence in my small corner of the world.
My small corner of the world,
where I don't necessarily make a name for myself,
where no one necessarily knows these gifts that I have,
but he also, like Saint Katharine Drexel,
stretched forth, using the gifts
which God had given him, towards excellence.
That's the thing, if you want to be a saint, if I want to be a saint,
I absolutely have to be magnanimous.
Which means I need to reject any temptation towards the opposite of magnanimity,
which is pusillanimity, which is not as fun to say, but it's more difficult.
Basically pusillanimous, to be pusillanimous
is littleness of spirit,
in some ways, it's timidity.
And here's the important thing: sometimes
(well I said, maybe I said that three times already)
sometimes we conflate humility with timidity,
that if you're humble you shrink back.
That's not true. If I'm timid, I shrink back.
To be humble is to acknowledge the truth,
and the truth is: the Lord has given me certain gifts.
I have, I bring to the to table certain faults.
So I have these strengths, I have these weaknesses; I have this grace
that He's been given me, I have these sins that I've chosen.
Humility acknowledges that truth, and then says:
in the midst of all of this,
now how do I stretch forth towards excellence?
In whatever it is, whatever God has blessed you,
whether that is as a mom, as a dad, as a husband, wife, as a single person,
whatever task you've been given, whatever gifts you've been given,
to say: okay, magnanimity calls me what?
calls me forth, calls me forth to excellence.
Not to timidity, not to pusillanimity,
not to the sense of pretending at being small.
In fact, there's this famous, I don't know if it's a poem or a number of stanzas,
it doesn't rhyme so I don't know,
but it talks about the temptation we have to play at being small,
the temptation we have to shrink back.
And yet, the saint cannot afford to do this, why?
Here's the last thing:
because magnanimity is not honoring oneself.
Magnanimity is giving God glory,
by using the gifts He's given, for His glory.
And that's it, it's not "now I'm famous",
"now I'm influential", "now I'm important",
it is: "I am simply using the gifts God has given me
so that He is known more, so that He is loved more,
so that He is glorified and honored more."
In fact, the saints have said that
the degree to which the person knows the love of God
is the degree to which they want to pour forth the love of God in this world.
The degree to which you know God's blessings in your life
is the degree to which you want
to allow those blessings to flow through you to others.
The degree to which you know God is good and great and excellent
is the degree to which you want to live a life
that is good and great and excellent.
Stretch forth your mind, your soul, stretch forth your life
towards excellence, towards great things,
and be magnanimous!
Ultimately take the gifts God's given you, and say:
Lord, I'm going to do everything I possibly can with these gifts,
so that You are known, You are loved, You are glorified,
and others may be drawn to Your goodness
through this excellence.
Ah, magnanimity, so good!
St. Katharine Drexel, pray for us! Blessed Solanus Casey, pray for us!
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Father Mike.
God bless!
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