Vainglory is an infection of one's zeal. If we do not negotiate acedia and experience the therapeutic event of compunction, we are ripe for the affliction of vainglory. The restless person leaves the cell and takes flight into the world rather than from the world. Fear of one's own false, self-constructed programs is the only way you can detect vainglory. Vainglory often means doing all the right things, but for the wrong reason. Vain means empty or directed toward the self, and glory is the name for God's abiding presence. So, to be vain is to take glory to the self and not to give glory to God. Vainglory is an affliction of the spiritually proficient. . . . It is an affliction of the righteous.
— Mary Margaret Funk, Humility Matters