LONGANIMITY. - From Latin longanimitas, it is one of the potential parts of the cardinal virtue of fortitude and signifies patience prolonged over time in the deferral of a desired thing. To endure a hardship for a short time belongs to the virtue of patience; to tolerate a hardship arising from the delay of an expected thing belongs to longanimity.
According to St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae, 2a-2ae, q. 126, a. 5), such patience is rather an act of magnanimity, inasmuch as it tends toward a distant good, overcoming the difficulty of waiting. In Sacred Scripture the term is used to signify the great patience of the Lord in bearing offenses, of which one must not take advantage, as St. Paul suggests (Rom 2:4), warning the sinner not to despise the riches of God’s patience and longanimity. As defects contrary to longanimity, one must note the same as those contrary to patience, namely, by defect, insensitivity, whereby one does not feel pain when one ought to; by excess, impatience, which drives one to complain, to be disturbed, and to murmur on account of waiting and delay.