He'd only touched the hymnals because the action seemed a benign thing for him to focus on rather than reflect fully on all of the trials of the previous days; even in his barely-remembered youth, Kratos had never called himself particularly religious. With a war and at times the politics of the royal court to deal with, he had found little time to be concerned with the state of his soul. There was of course fate, but that wasn't exactly something you could turn to for comfort or strength, but merely an inevitable truth that existed to be accepted.

But, it did seem a common, subconscious desire of Man to find something or some force larger than himself, one capable of acting where he could not. Kratos wasn't about to give much more time to entertaining that sort of possibility within himself.

"I see. It must be frustrating" He glanced briefly at Castiel's hand. Now was the time where he was supposed to be encouraging about the prospects of recovery, but he couldn't bring himself to be that optimistic. "Hopefully, we'll be able to unite around finding one."

Kratos frowned. "And forgive me, but you said...'this body'? So this" - he gestured toward Castiel - "isn't your original form?" That he could sympathize with, even though his appearance hadn't been changed.