Every year around the first of the year, each of us in our community draw an Epiphany gift, a virtue for the year.  (Whether it’s a gift from God or something to work on is up to each to decide. 🙂  I myself drew “Mercy” for the second year in a row.  Hmmm, what is God trying to say to me?

But the virtue I wanted to post about today is “Humility”.  Here’s a great story about the superiority of humility to every other virtue:

Humility is of more value than the greatest asceticism.  One day, as the desert monk St. Macarius (AD 300-391) was returning to his cell, the devil attacked him swinging a scythe, but was unable to wound him.  The devil complained, “Macarius, i suffer a lot of violence from you, for I cannot overcome you.  Whatever you do, I do also.  If you fast, I eat nothing; if you keep watch, I never sleep.  There is only one way in which you surpass me: your humility.  That is why I cannot prevail against you.”  (Frederica Matthewes-Green in The Jesus Prayer)