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In this article, I will address the topic “Strive to Be Significant.”2 The focus will be on the virtue of magnanimity as striving toward excellence. Over the years, I have come to a better understanding of magnanimity as a fundamental principle for developing spiritual wellness, personal wholeness, and a striving for excellence. I am going to focus on three things: discovering and embracing magnanimity, recognizing our own worth as gifts of God, and understanding what it means to strive for excellence through service. At the outset, there is an important point to establish. Each person’s gifts differ from person to person; they are not identical, nor should they be treated as measures of one another’s worth. This reflects the Church’s teaching on holiness. Lumen gentium teaches “All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity; by this holiness as such a more human manner of living is promoted in this earthly society. In order that the faithful may reach this perfection, they must use their strength accordingly as they have received it, as a gift from Christ." 3And, “Strive” reflects the understanding of “to make a strong, sustained effort toward something. It can also mean to contend or struggle — sometimes peacefully, sometimes in conflict.” 4C oach Tony Dungy, NFL Hall of Famer and author of Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance,5 puts the striving this way:
Finding your path to significance means discerning your calling and faithfully using your gifts for the good of others. For more than 25 years, this message was taking shape. I was trying to discover, and help others discover, the unique person each of us is created to become. Yet something always seemed to be missing. Then, in the fall of 2007, Alexandre Havard’s Virtuous Leadership6 introduced me to a virtue I could not recall ever having heard: magnanimity, and its opposing defect: pusillanimity. After that, magnanimity kept showing up in different readings. Eventually I began to think, “Maybe God is trying to tell me something, and I had better pay attention.” But the insight was still unfolding. Rereading my lecture notes I noticed the full title of Tony Dungy’s book, Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance, and the word “significance” suddenly seemed to leap off the page. It helped me see how magnanimity and greatness are connected to a life of significance, not status or recognition, but using our gifts in service of others. Havard connects leadership with virtue, personal excellence, and a grand purpose.
M agnanimity means ‘great-souled.’ From the Latin: magnus, meaning large or great, and animus, meaning mind or soul. Havard describes it simply as ‘the striving of the spirit toward great things.’Properly understood, magnanimity helps us undertake great things when they are truly fitting; humility keeps us truthful about where our gifts come from and what we can claim for ourselves. For St. Thomas Aquinas, magnanimity and humility each have their part to play in keeping our pursuit of great things reasonable. He writes: 7 ‘Magnanimity generates noble ambitions; humility channels these ambitions into serving others.’ Aquinas does not mean that honor never matters. He means that the magnanimous person seeks and receives honor in a fitting way, without making recognition the measure or reward of a virtuous life. M agnanimity is not presumption. It involves rightly judging one’s capacities and undertaking good works with confidence in God’s help.8 Magnanimity is not self-made greatness. It is a virtue lived in dependence on God, who gives our gifts and enables us to use them well.Havard also describes vocation as a specific calling to do a certain thing and to be a certain way. That gives us an important starting point: The first question of magnanimity is not, ‘What great thing can I accomplish?’ It is: ‘Who is God calling me to become?’ 9If magnanimity calls us to become great-souled, then what keeps us from living it? That would be pusillanimity, or small soul. Dr. Rebecca DeYoung, in her book Glittering Vices,10 describes the pusillanimous response as one who settles for becoming less than God created him or her to be, often through fear, intimidation, or an exaggerated focus on personal limitations.11 Magnanimity is not recklessness. "The transformative point for Aquinas," Dr. DeYoung writes, "is dependence on God. Only when we acknowledge our dependence on God can we grasp the true worth of the self and live up to our full potential." 12Thomas Aquinas 13 gives us the theological center of magnanimity: there is something great in us because of the gifts God has given us, and something defective because of our weakness. Magnanimity is the virtue that gives each person the courage to undertake great works of virtue, without giving up because they are difficult.Aquinas describes it as strengthening the spirit against despair and urging it toward great things “according to right reason.” 14 Excellence, then, means loving and serving faithfully in the vocation and responsibilities God has given you.St. Augustine, in Sermon 169, gives us another way to hear this call:
We are encouraged in reading in The First Letter of Peter 4:10, 11(NABRE):
So, “Is it More Important to Be Successful or Significant?”15 Wendy reflects on a conversation she had with her husband. He told her that “when he was growing up his father always stressed that it was more important to make your life significant than focusing on being successful. As she thought about his statement, she could not help but think about the difference between being successful or being significant and which one is most important to her.
M agnanimity is the virtue that moves us, with God’s help and in proportion to our gifts and vocation, to undertake great acts of virtue. It means refusing to let fear or false humility keep us from serving God and neighbor with the gifts we have received.16 It is not comparing yourself with someone else. It is discovering God’s unique gifts and talents in your own life and striving to live them fully.The significance of a magnanimous person is found in humble service: reaching out, lifting others up, and using one’s gifts for others. Fidelity in ordinary duties can itself be magnanimous. Many truly magnanimous people are not famous. Their significance becomes visible in the legacy they leave in the hearts and lives of others: teachers, coaches, and even Andy the Janitor whom I remember from high school. And probably had more guidance counseling sessions than anyone else on the high school staff. In the article "Schooling the Young into Goodness"17 it states:
Think about that statement: ‘Our fundamental error is not that we hope for too much, but that we settle for so little.’ Let that sink in. How often have we just settled for what is comfortable, for what is easy, for what requires the least effort, for what does not risk failure, for what does not require us to stretch. Magnanimity requires stretching. It involves movement and effort. You cannot remain completely comfortable and still stretch toward something greater. “Pope Francis put it this way: ‘Always step outside yourself!’” 18The more something means to you, the farther you are willing to stretch, even when it hurts. Therefore, do not settle for simply being good when magnanimity calls us to strive for excellence in whatever the tasks God has given us. S t. Pope John Paul II frequently encouraged young people:19 Likewise: Pope Francis spoke directly to young people with this striking quote: 20 M agnanimity, therefore, is a wholehearted readiness strving to attempt the great acts of virtue to which we are called, even when the task is difficult, uncertain or beyond our unaided strength.“… [F]or Aquinas, this virtue and its operation are possible only through God’s gift of grace … Magnanimity is thus fundamentally conceived in terms of vocation and stewardship: it is a response to God’s call, and willingness to use his gifts. …” BTW: Have you noticed the progression we have followed: Called ➙ Held Back ➙ Gifted ➙ Significant If you remember nothing else, imprint this on your heart: Do not bury your
talents. Not famous. Not important in the world’s eyes. “For if not YOU, who will?”
1. ChatGPT, Editorial Assistant, “Strive to be Significance • Magnanimity • The Virtue of Excellence,” accessed on October 01-04, 2026. 2. Magisterium.com, Editorial Review: “A Challenge to Significance • Magnanimity • The Virtue of Excellence,” 9/29/2026, accessed on September 29, 2026. 3. Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium, “Chapter V - the Universal Call to Holiness in the Church,”§40, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1964. 4. MagisteriumAI PRO, "Strive," accessed October 5, 2026. 5.Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker, Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance, p. 211, Tyndale House Publishing, 2011.
6. Alexandre Havard, Virtuous Leadership: An Agenda for Personal
Excellence, “Introduction,” p.
7. Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau OP, Thomistic Institute Podcast,
“The
Courage to Rest: Thomas Aquinas on
8. Nicholas Austin, SJ, “Moral Hope: Aquinas and Cajetan on
Magnanimity” Nova et Vetera, English 9. Havard, Virtuous Leader, p. xviii. 10. Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, pp. 9-10, Baker Publishing Group, 2009. 11. Ibid., p.12.
12. Dr. Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Ph.D.,
“Aquinas’s Virtues of
Acknowledged Dependence:
13. St. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologica, Question 129, (Article 3,
Reply to Objection 4) 14. Ibid., p. 6. 15. Wendy Gladney, Wendy’s Window, “Is it More Important to be Successful or Significant?” September 16, 2021. 16. Magisterium.com, Review.
17. Darin H. Davis and Paul J. Waddell,
“Schooling the Young into
Goodness,” © 2009 Center for 18. Pope Francis, Holy Week Audience, “Let Us Open Our Hearts!”, March 27, 2013.
19. Andreas Widmer, The Pope & the CEO: John Paul II’s Leadership
Lessons to a Young Swiss 20. Pope Francis, Dicastery for Communication, “Wednesday Audience,” 24 April 2013
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