A Simple Ancient Path to Union with God

Most Christians want to be closer to God.

The early Christians had the same hunger.

In the Egyptian desert, a monk named Germanus asked an elderly father named Isaac the same question you might ask: how does a person actually live close to God, not just believe in Him from a distance?

Isaac’s answer was recorded by John Cassian in Conference 10.

It is four steps. And anyone can begin today.

The Goal

Every human being wants joy that lasts.

Not a moment of happiness that fades. Not comfort that gets taken away. Something real, deep, and permanent.

This is not a fantasy. It is what the Christian life is actually for.

Isaac calls it a foretaste — a genuine experience, beginning in this life, of the bliss and glory that awaits us. Not waiting until death to begin. Starting now, in ordinary life, through a simple path.

Jesus prayed for this on the night before He died:

“That the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

The love that exists within God Himself — the source of all joy, all beauty, all peace — is meant to enter us.

Paul experienced it: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)

Isaac says when this begins to happen, God becomes “all our love, and every desire and wish and effort, every thought of ours, and all our life and words and breath.”

Not obligation. Not religious effort.

The deepest joy a human being can know, arriving quietly, from the inside.

This is the destination. And the path toward it is simpler than you think.

Step 1 — Pray One Prayer, Constantly

O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.

This is the prayer Isaac gives. One line. From Psalm 70.

Not a long prayer. Not a complicated method. A single cry, repeated without ceasing — while working, traveling, eating, before sleep, upon waking.

The soul of this prayer is humility.

It is the constant admission that we cannot do this alone. That we are weak. That we need God not occasionally but in every single moment.

Isaac says this verse fits every condition without adjustment — temptation, dryness, joy, fear, consolation. You never outgrow it because the humility it expresses is always true.

The person who prays this way is not performing religion. They are telling the truth about themselves, over and over, until that truth becomes the shape of the interior life.

Begin here. This is the foundation everything else rests on.

Step 2 — Live Inside God’s Story

The second step is to immerse yourself in the great story of God’s love for His people.

Read Scripture. Follow the liturgical calendar. Let the feasts and seasons carry you through the whole sweep of salvation — from creation, through the prophets, into the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection, and the life of the Church.

This is not study for information. It is inhabiting a love story.

Isaac says the soul begins to feed on “the mountains of the prophets and Apostles.” Above all, it returns again and again to the Passion — not as an exercise, but as a dwelling place.

The liturgical year exists precisely for this. It is the Church’s way of keeping us inside the story, season by season, so that the mysteries of Christ become the atmosphere we breathe.

Step 3 — Pray the Psalms

The third step follows naturally from the second.

Pray the Psalms. The Liturgy of the Hours is the Church’s ancient way of doing exactly this — sanctifying the whole day with the prayer of Scripture.

Something remarkable happens when you pray the Psalms regularly.

They stop feeling like ancient poetry. They begin to feel like your own words.

Isaac describes it precisely: the monk begins to sing them “not as if they were the compositions of the Psalmist, but rather as if they were his own utterances and his very own prayer.”

Why? Because the Psalms name every human experience — struggle, trust, desolation, praise, fear, surrender. The soul that has been shaped by constant prayer and the mysteries of God finds its own life mirrored there.

The words match the life. Scripture opens from the inside.

Step 4 — Trust the Silence

Finally, be willing to be still.

At some point, words become less necessary. Not because love fades, but because it deepens. The soul that has been humbled, formed by the story of God, and shaped by the Psalms finds that it can simply rest in God’s presence.

Isaac describes this prayer as “not engaged in gazing on any image… distinguished by the use of no words or utterances” — the mind “all on fire,” held in a wordless attentiveness.

This is not emptiness. It is fullness beyond what words can carry.

Do not be afraid of it. Do not grasp for it. Simply trust that God is present, and wait.

Paul names what is happening: “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” (Rom 5:5)

This is not achieved. It is received.

Begin Today

1. Pray one short prayer, constantly, in humility.

2. Live inside the story of God’s love — in Scripture and the liturgical year.

3. Pray the Psalms — the Liturgy of the Hours is the Church’s ancient path for this.

4. Trust the silence — let God’s love fill what words cannot reach.

This is the path Isaac described. It leads to what Jesus prayed for and what every human heart is searching for — a real foretaste of heaven’s joy, beginning today.

Not reserved for monks or mystics.

Available to anyone willing to begin.

O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.