The confident and soaring great soul

Northwestern clouds as the rising sun hits them

Robert Barron writes:

To overcome fear is to move from the pusilla anima (the small soul) to the magna anima (the great soul). When we are dominated by our egos, we live in a very narrow space, in the angustiae (the straits) between this fear and that, between this attachment and that. But when we surrender in trust to the bearing power of God, our souls become great, roomy, expansive. We realize that we are connected to all things and to the creative energy of the whole cosmos.
...
What Jesus calls for in metanoia is the transformation from the terrified and self-regarding small soul to the confident and soaring great soul. The seeing of the Kingdom, in short, is not for the pusillanimous but for the magnanimous.

[And Now I See...: A Theology of Transformation. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998. Page 5]

What a glorious image calling out to us amid our fears. "The confident and soaring great soul"--isn't that something we all want to be? Isn't it sad when there are moments (and decades) when we don't even want that for ourselves? Isn't it a joy to be around people we recognize as great souls?

O God, you lead your people out of every form of bondage into freedom, out of constriction and into a wide place, out of shadowy valleys and into broad pastures: Free us from our fears and enlarge our souls that we may not only know the wideness of your mercy but also be for others wide and gracious places of refreshment. You have pitched your tent in our midst; enlarge the tent of our souls, for you contain all things and have condescended to enter our hearts. To you be glory now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.
--the BB