1 Samuel 3:4

And the Lord called Samuel, etc. It's a challenging mode of speaking, how from time to time a father calls his son to know the secrets of his judgment; and he responds that he is present, who was born before time from the Father and speaks: All things have been delivered to me by my Father (Matthew XI). And: All that the Father has is mine (John XVI). But often Scripture, according to human manner, speaks about God, or rather God himself in Scriptures speaks about himself, as in the Gospel: For I do not speak on my own, but as I hear I judge; and all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you (John XV). Likewise, in Genesis, God said: Let us make man in our image and likeness (Genesis I). Therefore, Samuel, called by the Lord, responded: Here I am.

And therefore by no means let the ignorance or shallowness of one old man or of a few deter you and cut you off from that salutary path about which we have spoken and from the traditions of our forebears. The clever enemy misuses their gray hairs to deceive the young. But everything should be revealed to the elders without any obfuscating embarrassment, and from them one may confidently receive both healing for one's wounds and examples for one's way of life. Thanks to them we shall experience the same assistance and a like result if we strive to aim at nothing whatsoever by our own judgment and presumption.Finally, it is evident that this understanding is greatly pleasing to God, for not without reason do we find this same instruction even in holy Scripture. Thus, the Lord did not desire of himself to teach the boy Samuel through divine speech, once he had been chosen by his own decision, but he was obliged to return twice to the old man. He willed that one whom he was calling to an intimate relationship with himself should even be instructed by a person who had offended God, because he was an old man. And he desired that one whom he judged most worthy to be selected by himself should be reared by an old man so that the humility of him who was called to a divine ministry might be tested and so that the pattern of this subjection might be offered as an example to young men.

For Eli was sleeping with his sons inside the temple, and when the Lord desired to speak with the children of men, He forsook the old age which was trained in wisdom and exercised in the affairs of the world, and lusty manhood which had received the cunning of evil things, and came to simplicity and spake with it, and chose converse with it. "The Lord called to Samuel, Samuel, Samuel," twice; and simplicity rose up and ran to old age, and the child knew not who it was that called him; and he ran to give an answer to Eli instead of to God, and he did this three times, because he had not yet had experience of divine revelations. Now when Eli understood that it was the Lord Who had called him, he commanded him to make answer as unto the Lord, and not to run towards him. And old age sent youth to the Lord to learn His will, and cunning had need of simplicity that by means of it it might learn the Divine Will; for Eli entreated Samuel and begged him to reveal to him everything which he had heard from the Lord, and not to hide anything from him. And because he perceived that he himself was unworthy to speak with the Lord, he offered entreaty to the child to reveal to him the Divine mystery; and between Divinity and knowledge simplicity became an interpreter, and childhood received and made answer, and to a child only a few years old, who was unacquainted with the arrangement of the affairs of men, was the knowledge of God revealed. For the Lord dwelleth in the upright, and with the simple ones He speaketh; and He chooseth the sincere, who having learnt the word do not consider that it is their own, but they recognize Him that spake it, and to Him they return gratitude.