Change Of Heart by Jodi Picoult

Author:Jodi Picoult [Picoult, Jodi]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2008-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

be sick, like I needed something to grab hold of.

If you asked a dozen people on the street if they'd ever heard of the

Gnostic gospels, eleven would look at you as if you were crazy. In fact

most people today couldn't even recite the Ten Commandments. Shay

Bourne's religious training had been minimal and fragmented; the only

thing I'd ever seen him "read" was the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

He couldn't write; he could barely follow a thought through to the end

of one sentence. His formal schooling ended at a GED he'd gotten while

at the juvenile detention facility.

How, then, could Shay Bourne have memorized the Gospel of

Thomas? Where would he even have stumbled across it in his lifetime?

The only answer I could come up with was that he hadn't.

It could have been coincidence.

I could have been remembering the conversations incorrectly.

Or—maybe—I could have been wrong about him.

The past three weeks, I had pushed past the throngs of people

camped out in front of the prison. I had turned off the television when

yet another pundit suggested that Shay might be the Messiah. After

all, I knew better. I was a priest; I had taken vows; I understood that

there was one God. His message had been recorded in the Bible, and

above all else, when Shay spoke, he did not sound like Jesus in any of

the four gospels.

But here was a fifth. A gospel that hadn't made it into the Bible but

was equally as ancient. A gospel that espoused the beliefs of at least

some people during the birth of Christianity. A gospel that Shay Bourne

had quoted to me.

What if the Church forefathers had gotten it wrong?

What if the gospels that had been dismissed and debunked were

the real ones, and the ones that had been picked for the New Testament

were the embellished versions? What if Jesus had actually said

It would mean that the allegations being made about Shay Bourne

might not be that far off the mark.

And it would explain why a Messiah might return in the guise of a

convicted murderer—to see if this time, we might get it right.

I got out of my chair, folding the book by my side, and started to

pray.

Heavenly Father, I said silently, help me understand.

The telephone rang, making me jump. I glanced at the clock—who

would call after three in the morning?

"Father Michael? This is CO Smythe, from the prison. Sorry to disturb

you at this hour, but Shay Bourne had another seizure. We thought

you'd want to know."

"Is he all right?"

"He's in the infirmary," Smythe said. "He asked for you."

At this hour, the vigilant masses outside the prison were tucked into

their sleeping bags and tents, underneath the artificial day created by

the enormous spotlights that flooded the front of the building. I had to

be buzzed in; when I entered the receiving area, CO Smythe was waiting

for me. "What happened?"

"No one knows," the officer said. "It was Inmate DuFresne who

alerted us again. We couldn't see what happened on the security cameras."

We entered the infirmary. In a distant, dark corner of the room.

Shay was propped up in a bed, a nurse beside him.

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