“AMONG these moral virtues, obedience is the most important: it despises a greater good in order to be united with God. And there are three kinds of goods that man can despise for God: the least are external goods; the middle, bodily goods; and the highest goods, those of the soul. Among these, the will is in a certain way the principal one , insofar as it is through the will that man makes use of all the others. Accordingly, properly speaking, the virtue of obedience, which renounces one’s own will for God, is more important than the other moral virtues , which renounce some other goods for God. This is why St. Gregory says, in his Moralia, that obedience is rightly placed before sacrifices: because through sacrifices one sacrifices the flesh of another, while through obedience one immolates one’s own will .”
— St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Question 104).
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