The bridge on the sea

"I used to go every evening from Celle Ligure to Varazze and back again. There, there's a loop along the coast, a stretch of shore with a low retaining wall, then there's the beach and the sea. On a spring evening, the wall was packed with young couples, and I passed by many times, and said: 'Who knows, who knows these poor kids that live here without knowing why they live, of what they live, and they therefore live by instinct (but all men are like this). One evening the moon wasn't out, but there was an absolutely clear sky, full of stars. Just as I turned the corner of the street, I saw what none of you has ever seen, at the beach. In the morning I woke the children up saying: "Let's go see the bridge on the sea! The bridge on the sea!"

Then everybody got up in a hurry (otherwise it would have taken a half hour to get them up). Well, I saw, I stayed there dumbstruck to see it: the bridge of light cast on the sea by the Milky Way. Then I thought: 'It's really true that there's a hundredfold here below. Who knows how to look at the sea to this degree? Who knows how to observe things to this degree? None of these people.' Understand? The Milky Way that forms a bridge on the sea, just barely highlighted, but decidedly highlighted, without the strength of the moon, which is like that of the sun; not just any reflection, but really a bridge of light. The bridge of light on the sea with the Milky Way - none of you has ever seen it, has ever observed it, has ever discovered it, nor will you ever discover it if you don't pay attention to things such as love for destiny, which is Christ, which makes us capable of doing it."

(Luigi Giussani: Is It Possible To Live This Way?, 88)