You were made for greatness. Don't settle for less.

Have you ever been offered something wonderful and immediately talked yourself out of it?

Maybe it was a promotion at work, and you thought, "I'm not really qualified." Maybe someone invited you to lead a project, chair a committee, or step into a role of greater responsibility, and your first instinct was to shrink back. "That's not really for me," you said. "I'm fine where I am." We do this more often than we realize. Something in us pulls back from the larger life, the bigger call, the deeper invitation. We settle. Not because we're lazy, necessarily, but because something whispers that the bigger thing is for someone else.

We do this in ordinary life. But we do it even more in the spiritual life. And when we do it there, the consequences are far greater than a missed promotion.

 

The Sin Nobody Talks About

There's an old word in the moral tradition of Christianity that has almost disappeared from our vocabulary: pusillanimity. It comes from the Latin pusillus animus, meaning "small soul."

The pusillanimous person is not the one who commits dramatic sins. He is not the one who shakes his fist at heaven. He is the one who, standing at the threshold of a great calling, quietly says, "No, thank you. That's too much for me."

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, treats pusillanimity as a genuine vice, and he places it in opposition to the virtue of magnanimity, which means "greatness of soul." What is striking is that Aquinas does not treat pusillanimity as a form of humility. He treats it as a failure. The small-souled person, he argues, shrinks from what he is worthy of and refuses the gifts and calling that God has genuinely extended to him. In fact, while we often balk at those who think too highly of themselves, Aquinas actually argues that the opposite tendency toward small-soulness is actually a greater sin:

“Pusillanimity is a graver sin than presumption, since thereby a man withdraws from good things” (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 133, a. 2).

This is not modesty. This is a turning away from what God has prepared. Think about that for a moment. We usually think of sin as reaching too far, grasping for what isn't ours, overstepping our bounds. And of course, that is one form of sin. But there is another form that looks almost pious on the surface. It says: "I'm just a simple person. I'm no saint. I just want to get by."

It sounds humble. It even sounds safe. But it is, in its own way, a refusal. It is the servant who buries the talent in the ground and says to the master, "I knew you were a harsh man, so I was afraid" (Matthew 25:24-25, NRSV).

Fear dressed up as humility. Acceptance of our "smallness" dressed up as contentment. That is pusillanimity.

 

Made for Greatness

Consider what Pope Benedict XVI said, in the context of discussing prayer: "Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched." (Spe Salvi, section 33)

God does not call human beings to a life of spiritual mediocrity.

The whole trajectory of the Christian life is oriented toward sanctity, toward the fullness of what God intends for each person. This is not motivational rhetoric. It is theology. If human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, then the call to holiness is not an optional add-on for the spiritually ambitious. It is the very purpose for which we were created.

The Apostle Paul understood this when he wrote to the Ephesians: "For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (Ephesians 2:10, NRSV).

Notice the language. God prepared beforehand a way of life for you. Not a minimal existence. Not a "just enough to get by" kind of faith. A way of life. A calling. A destiny. And yet how many of us hear that and immediately begin negotiating downward? "Well, that's for monks and nuns." "That's for people with more faith than I have." "I believe in God, and I go to church. Isn't that enough?"

Some people say, almost with a note of pride, "Well, I'm no saint."

But what if you were called to be one?

What if sainthood is not the extraordinary exception but the ordinary expectation? 

What if every single human being who has ever drawn breath was designed for a holiness so deep and so radiant that settling for anything less is not humility but tragedy?

 

The "Little Way" to Greatness

It is easy to hear the call to "greatness" and assume it requires a stage, a uniform, or a martyr’s stake. We think magnanimity belongs only to the missionary in a foreign land or the pastor behind a pulpit. But one of the greatest "great souls" in history, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, offers a vital insight for those of us living seemingly "humble" or "ordinary" lives.

In Chapter 11 of Story of a Soul, Thérèse describes a profound spiritual restlessness. She felt a "martyrdom" of desire, wanting to be everything at once: a priest, an apostle, a doctor of the Church, and a missionary in every corner of the globe.

These were not small-souled ambitions; they were huge.

Yet, she was a cloistered nun in a small French town, physically frail (she was actually suffering from undiagnosed tuberculosis when she wrote these words, and died shortly thereafter) and hidden from the world.

She turned to the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 to resolve this tension. She read about the different members of the Body of Christ—some are eyes, some are ears, some are hands. But Thérèse realized that not everyone can be an apostle or a prophet. She looked deeper into Paul’s words until she reached the "more excellent way": Love.

She realized that the Church has a Heart, and that this Heart is burning with Love. She understood that if this Love were to fail, apostles would no longer preach and martyrs would no longer shed their blood. She realized that greatness is not about the scale of the action, but the intensity of the love behind it. She famously declared:

"I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places... in a word, that it was eternal! Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love... my vocation, at last I have found it... MY VOCATION IS LOVE!"

For Thérèse, magnanimity was found in her "Little Way." You do not need to become a missionary or a martyr to avoid pusillanimity. You don't have to "change the world" by starting some kind of new ministry. You just have to change the world around you by allowing the love that you've received in Christ to define you, to pour into you not merely to the brim of the cup of your soul, but to let it overflow in every daily task.

You simply need to perform your small, daily duties with a "great soul"—doing the dishes, enduring a difficult coworker, or offering a smile when you are tired—all for the love of God. Greatness is not about being a "big" person; it is about having a soul large enough to let God’s infinite love flow through your very finite, very ordinary life. It is a love that follows a "little way" but reaches a divine destination.

 

"Will It."

There is a famous story about St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theological minds in the history of Christianity. A young brother reportedly asked him what a person must do to become a saint. You might expect a mind as vast and systematic as Aquinas's to give a complex answer, a multi-step program, a long reading list.

But his response was devastating in its simplicity: "Will it."

That's it. Desire it. Choose it. Say yes.

Aquinas understood something that we often miss. The spiritual life is not primarily about capacity. It is about consent. God does not wait until you are qualified. He does not require a résumé. He doesn't expect you to have some kind of exceptionally talent.

He asks for your yes.

The entire architecture of grace is built on this principle: God offers, and the human person responds. The offer is always there. The question is whether we will open our hands to receive it, or whether we will fold our arms and say, "I'm not worthy of that."

Of course you're not worthy of it. That is precisely the point.

Grace is not a reward for the worthy. It is a gift for the willing.

 

A Girl from Nazareth

No one in the history of the world illustrates this more powerfully than Mary.

Consider her situation. She was young. She was from Nazareth, a town so insignificant that when Nathanael heard Jesus was from there, he asked, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46).

She was not wealthy. She was not powerful. She held no position of influence in the religious establishment of her day. By every human measure, she was a person of humble, even negligible, estate. Luke's Gospel puts it in her own words: "He has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant" (Luke 1:48).

And yet when the angel came to her with the most staggering announcement in human history, that she would conceive and bear the Son of the Most High, the One whose kingdom would have no end, she did not shrink back.

She did not say, "I'm no saint."

She did not negotiate downward.

Mary was greater than even Moses, even though Moses did big miracles. That's not to diminish Moses. God used him to do some exceptional things. When God called Moses, though, he had excuses, he shrank back, he claimed his difficulty with speech made him "too small" for what God had in mind for him.  

Not so with Mary. 

She asked one practical question about how this would happen, and then she said the words that changed the world: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).

Let it be. Fiat. Yes.

Mary's yes was not the yes of someone who felt ready. It was the yes of someone who trusted that the One calling her was faithful. She did not understand everything. She could not foresee what this yes would cost her, the sword that would pierce her own soul, the road to Calvary, the body of her Son laid in her arms.

But she said yes anyway.

And what of her soul? "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked with favor on the lowliness of His servant…” (Luke 1:46-48).

It's right there. Her magnanimous soul! Her great soul. 

Not because she was extraordinary in the way the world measures extraordinary. But because she was willing.

That is magnanimity. That is greatness of soul. Not the absence of fear, but the refusal to let fear have the final word.

 

The Courage to Say Yes

Here is what I want you to consider today. Where in your life are you settling for spiritual smallness?

Where have you quietly decided that holiness is for other people? Where have you buried the talent in the ground and convinced yourself that this is the safe and responsible thing to do?

Perhaps you have been sensing an invitation to pray more deeply, but you've told yourself you don't have time, or you don't know how.

If you want to go deeper in prayer, reach out to someone who has a deep prayer life and ask them what they do. Ask me if you'd like and I'll share what I know. Just three years ago I barely prayed at all. Despite all my theological education, I'd struggled my entire life to develop a deep prayer life. Today, my prayer life is the center of my life. Which is to say, Christ is now at the center of my life in a way He never was before, even when I was a pastor, even when I earned my theology degrees. None of those things made me more "saintly," but learning to pray has done (and is still doing) exactly that.

A genuine interior life, a prayer life, isn't just about "praying more often" it's about praying more deeply.

It doesn't necessarily mean jumping ahead, taking a "leap" to extraordinary heights with a single bound. It's not a call to be Superman (or Supergirl). It's a call to take a step, and then another, and another. It's a call to be genuinely you.

Because you were made for greatness.

Perhaps you've felt drawn to forgive someone, but you've decided the wound is too great. Perhaps you know there is a conversation God is asking you to have, a habit He is asking you to release, a generosity He is asking you to practice, and you have been saying, "Not yet. Not me. That's too much."

The pusillanimous voice sounds so reasonable. It always does. But it is the voice that keeps you small. And you were not made to be small.

You were made for greatness. Not the world's version of greatness, which is about power and recognition and accumulation. God's version of greatness, which is about love and surrender and the willingness to let Him do in you what you could never do on your own.

So here is the practical counsel. Today, ask yourself one question: What is God inviting me to that I have been refusing?

Be honest. You probably already know the answer.

It may be something dramatic, or it may be something quiet and hidden. It may be as simple as five more minutes in prayer each morning, or as costly as releasing a grudge you've carried for years.

Whatever it is, do what Aquinas said. Will it. Choose it. Say yes.

You do not need to see the whole road. Mary didn't. You do not need to feel ready. She wasn't. You do not need to be worthy. None of us are. You only need to be willing.

"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

That prayer is available to you right now, in this moment, on an ordinary Friday. Heaven is not waiting for you to become impressive. Heaven is waiting for you to stop saying no.