1 Samuel 1:3

(Moral Exposition) Indeed, he ascends on appointed days, because he advances gradually in the splendors of eternal vision. For what are those manifestations of inner light, if not days of the elect mind? And they are indeed appointed days, because they are arranged by divine ordering for those established in the progress of spiritual life; they are also appointed days, because we cannot be admitted to their brightness when we wish, but when we are raised up by divine condescension. For sometimes he receives us in contemplation of inner light, and sometimes he allows us to slip back even to preferring the darkness of human nature. For he raises us as if on appointed days, he who does not continually open the pleasantness of inner light, but shows it at times of his own arrangement. Therefore they are our days, because we are received in great splendors when the beauty of inner glory is revealed to us. But they are called appointed days because enjoying the innermost light is not a matter of our striving, but of divine condescension. For often through prolonged silence, urgent supplications, and frequent groans, we beg that the glory of inner light be opened to us, and we do not merit to be received into its pleasantness. Often we do nothing of this sort out of desire for it, yet suddenly divine grace anticipates us, raises us from the depths of our weakness, snatches us to heavenly things, and shows us the glory of his light when we do not hope for it. Therefore we ascend on appointed days, because we cannot be raised to the contemplation of heavenly things by our own striving, but by divine arrangement. The days of ascent are also thus named because when we do not enjoy that sublime light, we are in the depths; and when we are taken up to that lofty vision, we recognize how low we had lain before the hour of our assumption. […]

And that man ascended from his city on appointed days, etc. The Lord ascended from the common life of the faithful; for this is the city of our God on his holy mountain (Psalm XXVII): in his saints progressing and ascending from strength to strength, …

There were, however, there, the two sons of Eli, etc. Eli, my God: Ophni, meaning barefoot: Phinehas, meaning mute mouth. There were thus, in the time of the imminent Incarnation of the Lord, priests consecrated to the Lord in the law of good priesthood, and …

9. For what was the spiritual city of the Redeemer, if not Sacred Scripture? This city indeed conferred upon its citizens as many defenses and fortifications as it did precepts; it provided them as many weapons as counsels of salvation. But what was it for our Redeemer to ascend, if not to reveal the heights of his divinity in the form of his humanity? And because he is known in Sacred Scripture, he is rightly said to ascend from his city. The appointed days are the promises about him placed in the Holy Scriptures.

This man went up out of his city yearly,.... From year to year; or, as the Targum, from the time of the solemn appointed feast to the solemn appointed feast, from one to another; there were three of them in the year, at which all the males in Israel were to appear at the tabernacle; and being a Levite, this man was the more careful to observe this rule.