Everything has its own soul

“Everything has its own soul” expresses Roch’s vision of a world in which spiritual life extends beyond humanity: on the night of the Lord’s birth, every creature and even the smallest thing senses the event and awaits its appointed hour. Jagna receives the idea with wonder, but Boryna and Dominikowa remain unable to grasp it, leaving the claim poised between religious mystery and an expansive account of creation.

The Idea of a Soul in All Creation

Roch describes awareness as belonging not only to people and animals but also to “every little blade of grass,” “the tiniest pebble,” and even an “all but invisible star.” Nothing in the world is wholly insensible: each thing feels and knows in its own way. The phrase “everything has its own soul” gives this belief its most concentrated form, joining the smallest elements of the material world to a spiritual order.

The Christmas Night Explanation

Roch places this universal sensitivity within the night of Christ’s birth. On this one night, he says, everything wakes and listens, waiting for Jesus to call a soul worthy of heaven. Some receive that call; others return to darkness and wait for dawn, remaining where the Lord has commanded. His account makes the natural world part of the Christmas event: grass, rock, water, and trees are not merely scenery, but participants in a creation that waits upon divine mercy.

Wonder and Incomprehension

Jagna answers Roch’s explanation by exclaiming that the earth and stones, too, are included. The others fall silent and ponder his words, which strike them as wise and heartfelt. Yet Boryna and Dominikowa cannot make the idea fully intelligible to themselves. They accept that God’s power is mysterious and miraculous, but hesitate at the thought that stones and all things possess souls. Their response preserves a tension between faith in divine mystery and the limits of what they can understand; the gathering soon turns to the arrival of the blacksmith, his wife, and their children before the group goes together to Vigil Mass.