It is an image of the Immaculate with outstretched hands, signifying the river of graces that reach us through her. She looks downward toward Jesus and also toward her children, the faithful, as a welcoming gesture toward her son, whom she presents to us. In front of this image, there is another, the one of the Christ Child, pointing with his left hand to his own Heart and with his right to his Mother, as if saying: “Through my Mother, the treasures of my Heart will be poured out.” The Child, at the approximate age of 12, seems to be saying: “If you want the graces of which my Heart is the Source, come to my Mother. She has the key, as treasurer, and can distribute the treasures that it contains as she pleases.”
First in 1861, he asked Mr. Leopard Lobin, a glass artisan, to construct a stained glass window in the chapel. Later, when he was able to enlarge the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart, he ordered a grand statue 1.70 m tall with the same representation for the altar of Our Lady. It was made out of white marble from Carraca by a well-known sculptor, Jules Blanchard, and was finished in 1868. She was crowned on the 8th of September, 1869 with the Pontifical Brief of Pope Pius IX in the presence of twenty thousand pilgrims, thirty bishops and six hundred priests.
