Mary Grace
The Wounded Chalice: Celebrating the Divinity of the Womb
AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN • 2008

Undergoing the surgical operation of a hysterectomy is a profound event in any woman's life. For Mary Grace, her uterus represented the Divine Feminine, her children's first home. She refused to let the removal of her womb be treated casually by the medical establishment. She agreed to the hysterectomy under one condition: she wanted her uterus back. The Wounded Chalice is Mary's seventy-year journey from little girl in a male dominated society to grandmother honoring the sacredness of her body. The memoir's nostalgia of mittens drying on the wood stove is balanced with the reality of a life: an abusive father, two divorces, and the horrifying sexual abuse of her daughter by the girl's own father (who bizarrely tried to justify his own actions). Reflective, though never bitter, The Wounded Chalice contains Mary's greatest teaching, "You are here because your mom honored the Divinity of her Womb, which contained You."