Gregory the Great — on 1Sam 8:6 (Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1)

“Yet when holy men see that they are despised by their subjects, what displeases them is not so much that they are despised, but that those who despise them do not please God. For by the contempt shown to them, they see that increases are given to their own interior glory; but they groan that their merits are increased by the failings of their subjects, whom they would rather have advance in merits, so that in the eternal reward of merits they might have been able to have with them those over whom they preside. 4. For what displeased him was that through which he judged those who were speaking to be displeasing to God. But because it is not simply said, "the matter displeased Samuel," but "in the eyes of Samuel," and immediately it is added: (Verse 6.) "And Samuel prayed to the Lord for the people," we ought to consider these things somewhat more carefully. Holy men, who greatly fear displeasing Almighty God, are not hasty in their judgments, but first arrange all things rationally within themselves, so that they may dispose of them outwardly in action without reproach. For they accept no choice of judgment unless it is approved by the contemplation of reason. The Lord indeed wished to open these eyes of the prophet when He said: "See with your eyes, and hear with your ears" (Ezek. 40:4). Hence in the Gospel He said to the disciples: "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see" (Luke 10:23). For the eyes of the saints are the understanding of reason, opened by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And therefore they are said to be Samuel's, because all carnal people, even if they seem rational through human wisdom, are all the more blind to this light of reason, inasmuch as they see only with those eyes which the serpent opened. For if they could behold the splendor of spiritual virtues, they would surely desire to possess it as the adornment of their mind. So great indeed is the beauty of these virtues that their sight can never fail to be desired with longing by the one who sees them. Therefore the wise of this world, when they suppose themselves to possess the eyes of reason, can recognize from this how madly they rage: because not to be attracted by the beauty of holy virtues is surely not only not to perceive their glory, but not even to dream of it. Therefore holy men, who are already bound by the love of interior things through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, have the eyes of their mind all the clearer for seeing the glory of inward brightness, the more they have no desire for anything from the darkness of the world; and they can discern carnal things all the more rightly, the further they have been raised up from carnal things and have advanced more deeply into the grace of the Holy Spirit. Hence the Apostle Paul also, from the experience of so great a vision, pronounced the sentence, saying: "The spiritual man judges all things" (1 Cor. 2:15). Rightly therefore it is said: "The matter displeased in the eyes of Samuel." Because by spiritual men nothing is despised before it is judged to be worthy of contempt through the spiritual insight of the mind. And because the more abundantly they are filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, the less they presume upon the loftiness of their own virtue, there follows: "And Samuel prayed to the Lord." For what did he pray to the Lord, if not that He would deign to show him whether he ought to give assent to the petition of the tumultuous people? (Verses 7, 8.) "And the Lord said to Samuel: Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For they have not rejected you, but me, that I should not reign over them, according to all their works which they have done from the day when I brought them out of Egypt even to this day."”