“For the vice of pride is a near neighbor to good deeds, and arrogance ever lies in wait hard by virtue: because it is hard for him that lives praise-worthily not to be caught by man’s praise unless, as it is written, “he that boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”
St. Leo the Great
Let us now consider wherein lies the terrible danger of this vice of pride.
(1) Because while all other vices destroy only their opposite virtues, as wantonness destroys chastity, greediness temperance, and anger gentleness, etc., pride destroys all virtue, and is according to St. Gregory like a cancer which not only eats away one limb but attacks the whole body: “Like a widespread pestilential disease.”
(2) Because the other vices are to be feared only when we are disposed to evil; but pride, says St. Augustine, insinuates itself even when we are trying to do good. “Other vices are to be feared in sins, pride is to be feared even in good deeds.” And Saint Isidore says: “Pride is worse than every other vice from the fact that it springs even from virtue and its guilt is less felt.”
(3) Because after having fought against and overcome the other vices we may justly rejoice, but as soon as we begin to rejoice that we have triumphed over pride it triumphs over us, and becomes victorious over us in that very act for which we are praising ourselves for conquering it. St. Augustine says: “When a man rejoices that he has overcome pride, he lifts up his head for very joy and says: Behold, I triumph thus because you triumphed.”
(4) Because if the other vices are of quick growth, we can also rid ourselves of them quickly; but pride is the first vice we learn, and it is also the last to leave us as St. Augustine says “For those who are returning to God, pride is the last thing to be overcome, as it was the first cause of their leaving God.”
(5) Because as we have need of some special grace of God in order to enable us to do any of those good works that pertain to our eternal salvation, so there is no vice which prevents the influx of grace so much as pride; because “God resists the proud” (James 4:6).
(6) Because pride is the characteristic and most significant sign of the reprobate, as St. Gregory says: “Pride is the most manifest sign of the lost.”
(7) Because the other vices are easily recognizable, and therefore it is easy to hate them and to amend; but pride is a vice that is not so easily known because it goes masked and disguised in many forms, even putting on the semblance of virtue and the very appearance of humility; thus being a hidden vice it is less easy to escape from it, as is taught in the maxim of St. Ambrose: “Hidden things are more difficult to avoid than things known.”
(These are not my words; This is an excerpt from the book title Know Thyself 100 Guided Meditations on Humility of Heart) I find this particular piece to be very profound I had to share it…Are you proud? Read and learn….for surely, “The first will be last and the last will be first” (Mathew 19:30).
