Local woman to release co-written book on Gospel of Luke

A woman who has been living in Athlone for 15 years is about to release a co-written book which examines the Gospel of Luke.

‘The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Luke’ was written by Tríona Doherty, originally from Kells in Co Meath, and Jane Mellett, who met in college while they both studied theology.

“It’s been more than ten years in the works to be honest,” Tríona said. “Back then we started writing a weekly column in a magazine called Intercom. It’s published by the Irish Bishops Conference, and is a resource for priests and people working in parishes.

“We alternated every second month and wrote short reflections on the Sunday readings, and we had been talking for years to put them together into a book someday, but we seriously looked into it about two years ago.

“Because we had done the column, we were able to draw on a lot of the stuff that we had already written and update some of it to make it all sit together as a collection.”

The process of writing the book involved full days on Zoom calls as a result of pandemic restrictions.

“It was very much a collaboration even though we wrote separately. We agreed on everything and edited it all together, and it’s probably the way we would have done it anyway but with a few extra meetups because Jane lives in Dublin,” said Triona, who worked as a journalist with this newspaper.

The Deep End invites readers to come on a journey, through the story of Luke’s Gospel, to follow Jesus in the short years of his ministry.

Through a series of reflections on the Sunday Gospels of Year C, it shares the Gospel’s focus on cultivating inclusiveness, compassion and a love that can turn the world upside down.

“We’re not aiming the book at anybody in particular, and we’re hoping there will be a wide readership for it,” Tríona said. “Anybody with an interest in scripture or anybody who goes to mass on a Sunday and just wants a bit more to reflect on can enjoy it. Hopefully people can take practical ideas from it.

“We’ve taken each gospel story, spoken about the text and we’ve tried to apply it to contemporary situations. What does the gospel have to say to us about our family lives, about poverty or about marginalised people?

“There’s a lot in this gospel about speaking out against injustice and overturning some of the unjust systems of the time, and we feel that has a lot to say to the world now.”

Jane is also the Laudato Si’ Officer for Trócaire, so the climate crisis has been addressed in the book quite a bit. This relates to the 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ – On Care for Our Common Home, published by Pope Francis in 2015, which urges us all to listen to “the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor”.

“It’s a big issue today, and the church is starting to engage with it,” Tríona said. “We’re conscious as well that very few of these books are written by women and lay people outside of some in America, so we’re trying to do something different on that front as well.”

The book launch for The Deep End, published by Messenger Publications in Ireland and Twenty Third Publications in the US (under the title 'Delve Deeper'), takes place virtually next Wednesday, September 29, at 7.30pm.