On the pedestal of the statue's throne is carved the story of Pelayo, founder of the Kingdom of Asturias and hero of the Reconquest. On the throne itself, a concept of sublime Marian theology is expressed. The days of creation are represented by worlds budding from chaos, rays of light tearing the clouds, waters separating, vegetation blooming, beasts and fish and birds filling the earth. The Virgin who sits here is presented as greater than all creation, because the world and the things that fill it deserve to be no more than the throne of her majesty. This composition recalls the words which are read as the lesson at the Mass of the Immaculate Conception: "I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived" (Proverbs 8.22-30). A 17th-century church in Valladolid that had formerly served as the chapel of the Jesuit College of St. Ambrose; the parish Church of St. Stephen, and the Expiatory Temple of the Sacred Heart was rededicated as the National Sanctuary of "la Gran Promesa" in 1941 to commemorate an especially Spanish devotion to the Sacred Heart propagated by the 18th century Jesuit Bernardo de Hoyos. "Talleres de Arte" created the new interior artwork for the Sanctuary over the next decade, replacing altarpieces and shrines destroyed by fire in 1869. The main altarpiece includes a large sculpture of the Sacred Heart and reliefs of John the Apostle, Mary, the Last Supper and the Doubt of Thomas. Felix Granda also designed side altars dedicated to Christ the King of Martyrs and Our Lady of the Pillar, as well as reliefs of "la Gran Promesa" and the Adoration of the Magi; a processional float of Christ the King; the Pulpit; the Stations of the Cross; the tabernacle; the rood and the monstrance.